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Anecdotal: I am having trouble getting anyone (nerdy/techy or otherwise, but let's stick to Linux-y friends, I'm a Linux professional) to set up an account and

Anecdotal: I am having trouble getting anyone (nerdy/techy or otherwise, but let's stick to Linux-y friends, I'm a Linux professional) to set up an account and actually use the service. Even the friends who are very privacy and security leaning in nature who might embrace what Matrix offers in this realm. I generally steer them towards the Element clients (web/phone) which are easy to use. A few have created accounts, logged on, a chat or two then walked away, never really came back. The federated non-tech channels I'm in are pretty dead as well (hobbies and the like). Couple hundred people... maybe a post or two a month. Point being, it's not getting adopted outside of software/tech circles (almost every happening room/channel is based around some sort of software or tech solution) from what I can tell, so I end up having no use for it other than communicating with random folks ala IRC general chat.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
This confuses me. Those individuals who are > very privacy and security leaning in nature were not already on Matrix?
- gravitas 6y ago
  Nope, and show reluctance to even bother trying. We communicate via Signal, which unlike Matrix has favored adoption even outside tech circles in the past few years.
  - godelski 6y ago
    Also isn't E2EE new to Matrix? My understanding is also that they don't handle group privacy the same way that Signal does (which granted, is a new feature as well). I'll also say that in a space that is evolving quickly, a centralized system where I can know that people are on a version similar to me is pretty important. I don't have any fear of Moxie turning and pushing backdoor keys into everyone's app.
    - twentydollars 6y ago
      > Also isn't E2EE new to Matrix? It was turned on by default in May of 2020. It was available before then. > I don't have any fear of Moxie turning and pushing backdoor keys into everyone's app. He could, though, and you have to trust him not to. I see that as a problem.
      - godelski 6y ago
        > It was turned on by default in May of 2020. It was available before then. Thanks! I do think default matters though. Do you know how they handle groups and metadata? > He could, though, and you have to trust him not to. I see that as a problem. Personally I don't. At the end of the day we have to trust a lot of people for society to operate. I'll stay on Signal where I can get my non privacy concerned friends connecting while all signs point to the opposite of Moxie turning. Especially considering the tradeoff of how the space is moving so fast currently. Maybe I'll revisit when no metadata E2EE group chats are widespread and Matrix creates a very simple server setup. Federation makes sense to me for mature technologies, but not for fast moving technologies.
        hda2 6y ago
        Rubber hoses still exist. I think GP was trying to correctly point out that having a single point of failure is a weakness in any system, cryptographic or otherwise.
        godelski 6y ago
        But Moxie's point in the blog post that is referenced is that with federated systems you have a lot of failure points. You can't keep everyone on the latest update in a federated system. You need all those actors to function perfectly, most of whom aren't going to be experts. This makes federated systems not great for anyone but experts.
        hda2 6y ago
        > federated systems [..] have a lot of failure points They sure do, but you also have access to all the parts needed to maintain your own instance and so does everyone else. Failures, when they happen, are limited to instance who aren't "functioning perfectly" instead of extending to every user of a centralized system. Just to keep everyone reading this thread on the same page: The point of failure being discussed here is the human factor. See comment ancestors for context.
  - hda2 6y ago
    > Nope, and show reluctance to even bother trying. We communicate via Signal Not all of us. Many of us realize the benefits of federation and the security implications of having a single point of failure.
    - gravitas 6y ago
      My reply wasn't meant generically, sorry if it didn't come across - I was replying to the question about my friends in this category, not making any sort of statement about others.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
gavreh 6y ago
I have convinced a few people to participate. For non-technical people, get them to install the mobile app - there's less barrier to entry and people "understand" installing apps these days.
tinco 6y ago
I just signed up, it immediately was useless because even though I allowed it full access to my contacts it couldn't tell me if anyone was on Matrix. Then I tried adding a friend, and it only let me add them by email, not by phone number, so that fully disqualifies the app as a phone messenger application. What good is a phone messenger app if I can't send someone a message on their phone number? Signal just works, I use it as my day to day sms app, and it shows me who of my friends also have signal so I text them on messenger if they do, and WhatsApp if they don't. So the real reason is Matrix just isn't even trying to compete with signal or WhatsApp, it's competing with MSN Messenger, which everyone stopped using over 15 years ago.
- stryan 6y ago
  Many people would consider that a feature rather then a bug, but that sounds like something with whatever identity server you're using. Element seems to be focusing more on the IRC/Slack/Discord style of communication though instead of Signal/WhatsApp. You can definitely use it for the latter (I use it for plenty of 1 on 1 conversations with RL friends) but right now it's more for channels and rooms and eventually Slack workspaces/Discord guilds. That's all on the client end though; I'm sure someone will eventually write a Matrix client that mimics Signal/WhatsApp etc more.
  - crankyoldcrank 6y ago
    > that sounds like something with whatever identity server you're using. The relationships between the home server, identity server, and client on Matrix are not made clear in any user friendly way in the Matrix documentation for homeserver operators so I can't imagine it's clear for end users either. It's one of the things that I think keeps killing Matrix. Now let's see if Arathorn shows up to tell me how wrong I am. Wouldn't be the first time. Nothing inspires confidence in the maturity of a product like a CEO that joins discussions to tell users who've had bad experiences that it was their fault for not understanding the documentation. That's how Facebook got so big, don't you know? I'm absolutely obsessed with chat solutions like Matrix and Arathorn probably doesn't remember me but I remember his attitude towards my feedback.
markosaric 6y ago
have similar experience. struggled with Matrix/Element and with Signal too. the only app that works for non-techy audience in my experience is Telegram. i got several people to stick and continue using Telegram while i did not succeed with the other two. i guess better than Whatsapp in any case! on the other hand, we use Matrix for all the communication in our little startup. we got some integration going on such as rss feed and notifications about new signups etc. works great as a Slack alternative.
- mkesper 6y ago
  Signal works quite ok with my family members.
  - maqp 6y ago
    Signal is one of the few good ones that show promise. They manage to deliver usable features. One fantastic thing is extremely picky userbase that's nagging about small details in the community forum. The developers seem to really get average users, and the commitment to privacy over feature adoption schedule means every feature is as polished as the latest cryptographic design allows it to be. This means every feature is an actual feature that gives more power to the users. Sure, there's stuff that indeed needs improvement, like usernames and registration without phone numbers, but once those come, it's likely to be polished enough not to require sudden knee-jerk patches like adding Google Captchas because a billion cryptocurrency scambots suddenly started spamming everyone, and there was no private Captcha alternative available. I love that Signal doesn't consider privacy an individual feature (like Telegram Secret Chats) or Matrix opt-in E2EE (something that was the case at least in the past). Everything is E2EE, it's an integral property of every feature, there's no risk of downgrade attacks because the codebase never contained a non-E2EE implementation of some feature in the first place. When working with TFC, I wanted the same with advanced properties like Onion Service based anonymity for everything, as well as endpoint security against key exfiltration, which I knew meant almost non-existent userbase due to the architectural design that requires custom HW data diode etc. I consider myself in a privileged position, I didn't have to consider every average user and that was almost exclusively due to the fact there was already a usable solution for networked TCBs, i.e. Signal, and a usable anonymity solution for networked TCBs (Ricochet and later Briar and soon cwtch.im). So I'm glad I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Signal, Briar and Cwtch are _the_ interesting platforms. Signal is slowly taking over Telegram in terms of usability, while Briar is experimenting with an incredibly fascinating stuff like blogs and forums hosted on your personal devices' Onion Service. You could theoretically run a clone of any social media platform page for yourself from your phone, once average phones are fast enough and use fast enough Internet (5G/Wifi6 etc) to make Tor snappy (enough). Who knows, perhaps by then Signal will also run over Tor.
twentydollars 6y ago
A lot of Linux-y people, including myself, reject Matrix. It's not the solution it claims to be. I could write a list of criticisms of Matrix's software products, organization, and track record, but the main problem is that we want an ip-native comms tool that's /actually/ decentralized. Matrix is Open Source, federated, self-hosted Slack (plus voice calls). That's great, but that leaves you needing to trust a homeserver admin or host your own homeserver. Putting aside that there STILL isn't a finished homeserver implementation, you'll have to rely on a third party no matter what. Either it's hacker Joe (the admin of your homeserver), or the server hosting company that hosts your homeserver, or the DNS registrar who legally has to have your real identity... It may be theoretically possible to host a homeserver without a domain name, but you'd still need to register your real name with an ISP to get a static IP. Freedom from this kind of control should be baked into the software. Plenty of teams have tried it (retroshare, Scuttlebutt, etc.) but unfortunately none of them are quite there yet.
- m52go 6y ago
  How is Matrix not the solution it claims to be? What's not /actually/ decentralized about it? Keep in mind software of this kind doesn't just [poof] appear out of nowhere...it's typically built incrementally on meager budgets. What you seem to want is a peer-to-peer solution, which at this point in time is not something Matrix has built or claims to have built.
  - twentydollars 6y ago
    It's not decentralized because it's federated, client-server chat software. This is more decentralized than Discord or what-have-you, but it requires reliance on multiple centralized internet services and authorities, as I outlined. I'm well aware that FOSS projects tend to be underfunded. Matrix is an outlier with some large grants fueling the project and opaque organizational structure. > What you seem to want is a peer-to-peer solution, which at this point in time is not something Matrix has built or claims to have built. Peer-to-peer is not absolutely necessary (it can be both). There's nothing wrong with routing message through a network, but e2ee is absolutely necessary, and it took until May this year for Matrix to enable that feature by default. Most importantly, in Matrix, your identity is associated with and controlled by a homeserver. It's under someone else's control. That's not good... Your identity should be under your control. We've known how to do this with asymmetric encryption for at least a couple of decades.
suyash 6y ago
I use element - though hate using it, bugs me with annoying permissions every-time and it's yet another chat app from user point of view. User's already have to juggle Slack, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Discord so I'm very sympathetic to users who are resisting/not using it. The world doesn't need 100 chat apps, we need to consolidate all this into one single app, if there something that solves that problem, sign me up :)
- Arathorn 6y ago
  It shouldn't be bugging you with any permissions - what are they?
  - suyash 6y ago
    try the web app and you'll see
- phildenhoff 6y ago
  Matrix can solve that problem if you lean more into it. There are a number of applications you can run called “bridges” that can pull all your WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack messages into Matrix rooms and push your replies out as your appropriate user. Then you’ve got all your chat in one place — that’s exactly how I use Matrix today.
  - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    Bridges are an usability disaster. Most have been unreliable for many years. On multiple occasions I ended up talking to maintainers or developers due to bugs. It's been many years and you can barely use the official bridges for IRC and with many limitations.
    - roaur 6y ago
      I disagree that bridges are a usability disaster - they're Matrix's competitive advantage. I'm using mautrix-whatsapp, mautrix-hangouts and smsmatrix without any issues. Which bridges do you have problems with?
tomjen3 6y ago
Nerd here. I don't care to sign up for a chat service that my friends aren't using. I did look into matrix, but either I have to host a server myself or I will forever be stuck on one other guys server, right? Then there is no reason to move to it and it is not really anymore federated than email.
- remirk 6y ago
  In what way is it not federated like e-mail? > or I will forever be stuck on one other guys server, right This is valid criticism at the moment. There is work being allocated on fixing this issue, with multiple protocol drafts, but it might take a year a two before you can finally transfer accounts between servers.
  - Arathorn 6y ago
    We're aiming to get portable accounts early next year, as part of the P2P work, using the approach at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2787 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2787. P2P Matrix is unusable without it.
    - remirk 6y ago
      Awesome! Thanks for the reply Matthew!
  - tomjen3 6y ago
    I meant to say that it is not more federated than email: sure I can write to anybody using any service but my @gmail is forever bound to googles service. In my mind a true federated service would allow me to move my stuff from one place to any other place, kinda the way I can move my domain to a new host.
Arathorn 6y ago
Speaking as the project lead for Matrix (and Element) - we are doing everything we can to improve Element's UX. If you're interested in the details, go watch the first 5 minutes of this week's Matrix Live (our weekly podcast), where Amandine and I spell out how important this is; it's literally an existential threat to the project; and what we're doing to fix it: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/11/13/this-week-in-matrix-2020-11-13 https://matrix.org/blog/2020/11/13/this-week-in-matrix-2020-... Our goal is of course to use it as a replacement to WhatsApp / Telegram / Discord for social stuff, even though it's dominated by developers today. And we will get there (despite all the negativity on this thread :|)
- Esras 6y ago
  I appreciate all the work that you and your team have put into Element and Matrix over the last few years. While I still think there's plenty to go, I think there's been clear communication about what the project has worked on, what you're trying to do with it, and acceptance that certain features, while important, aren't as important as more core features. (My personal pet one is custom emoji, MSC1951). I still think that this is one of the more important open-source future-facing projects around and will continue supporting it, and urge others to, as well. If you dislike the hegemony of centralized services, then throw some money towards projects that support ideals you believe in.
  - Arathorn 6y ago
    Thanks :) In terms of custom emoji, it may be worth checking out our new public roadmap for Element (which is new this week and hasn't yet been announced): https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1 https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1. On the plus side, custom emoji are on the roadmap. On the minus side, they're on the 'Later' column - so you can see where they stack up relative to other work. Agreed that they would make a massive difference. We will get there eventually though (or perhaps folks will contribute them sooner :)
    - schmorptron 6y ago
      I'd like to agree with the comment above yours that how communicative you are being and the openness about issues combined with the transparency of the project really raises my and probably many others' opinion of the project and that if you continue this way, it's really looking bright!
Akronymus 6y ago
I am part of a quite active community on matrix. Basically a split off of a subcommunity of a discord of a reddit community. (Specifically moving politics away from the community discord) So, it is possible to move people over, but it only really works in terms of batches of people and basically as a island of people, rather than integrated into the wider community.
servercobra 6y ago
I've never used Matrix and I'd love a replacement for Slack/Discord. But hearing "I generally steer them towards the Element clients" is going to be a huge turnoff for a lot of non-tech people. Even as a tech user, I don't really want to compare and research different clients to figure out which is best.
- Evidlo 6y ago
  What's preventing you from picking one at random, then?
  - mircea 6y ago
    The Paradox of Choice.
- feanaro 6y ago
  What do you propose to do instead? To actively prevent people from creating clients for the protocol? The Element clients are the closest to what you could consider official clients, being made by the Element company, which does most of the Matrix design and development.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  Imagine you've never heard of Gmail before. How does "I generally steer them towards the Gmail clients" sound if someone asks you about email?
  - thekyle 6y ago
    I don't think that's a good example since Gmail is an email provider which can be used with any email client. Element is a Matrix client that can connect to a matrix provider.
  - ohmaigad 6y ago
    The difference is in marketing. Gmail is a service with its own official app and so on. Matrix is a protcol, you can't market a protocol to regular people. Other than techies, nobody cares how their chat works as long it works so if you want to gain traction you market Element as the new hot messaging app and not Matrix the protocol.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago

This confuses me. Those individuals who are > very privacy and security leaning in nature were not already on Matrix?

gravitas 6y ago
Nope, and show reluctance to even bother trying. We communicate via Signal, which unlike Matrix has favored adoption even outside tech circles in the past few years.
- godelski 6y ago
  Also isn't E2EE new to Matrix? My understanding is also that they don't handle group privacy the same way that Signal does (which granted, is a new feature as well). I'll also say that in a space that is evolving quickly, a centralized system where I can know that people are on a version similar to me is pretty important. I don't have any fear of Moxie turning and pushing backdoor keys into everyone's app.
  - twentydollars 6y ago
    > Also isn't E2EE new to Matrix? It was turned on by default in May of 2020. It was available before then. > I don't have any fear of Moxie turning and pushing backdoor keys into everyone's app. He could, though, and you have to trust him not to. I see that as a problem.
    - godelski 6y ago
      > It was turned on by default in May of 2020. It was available before then. Thanks! I do think default matters though. Do you know how they handle groups and metadata? > He could, though, and you have to trust him not to. I see that as a problem. Personally I don't. At the end of the day we have to trust a lot of people for society to operate. I'll stay on Signal where I can get my non privacy concerned friends connecting while all signs point to the opposite of Moxie turning. Especially considering the tradeoff of how the space is moving so fast currently. Maybe I'll revisit when no metadata E2EE group chats are widespread and Matrix creates a very simple server setup. Federation makes sense to me for mature technologies, but not for fast moving technologies.
      - hda2 6y ago
        Rubber hoses still exist. I think GP was trying to correctly point out that having a single point of failure is a weakness in any system, cryptographic or otherwise.
        godelski 6y ago
        But Moxie's point in the blog post that is referenced is that with federated systems you have a lot of failure points. You can't keep everyone on the latest update in a federated system. You need all those actors to function perfectly, most of whom aren't going to be experts. This makes federated systems not great for anyone but experts.
        hda2 6y ago
        > federated systems [..] have a lot of failure points They sure do, but you also have access to all the parts needed to maintain your own instance and so does everyone else. Failures, when they happen, are limited to instance who aren't "functioning perfectly" instead of extending to every user of a centralized system. Just to keep everyone reading this thread on the same page: The point of failure being discussed here is the human factor. See comment ancestors for context.
- hda2 6y ago
  > Nope, and show reluctance to even bother trying. We communicate via Signal Not all of us. Many of us realize the benefits of federation and the security implications of having a single point of failure.
  - gravitas 6y ago
    My reply wasn't meant generically, sorry if it didn't come across - I was replying to the question about my friends in this category, not making any sort of statement about others.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

gavreh 6y ago

I have convinced a few people to participate. For non-technical people, get them to install the mobile app - there's less barrier to entry and people "understand" installing apps these days.

tinco 6y ago

I just signed up, it immediately was useless because even though I allowed it full access to my contacts it couldn't tell me if anyone was on Matrix. Then I tried adding a friend, and it only let me add them by email, not by phone number, so that fully disqualifies the app as a phone messenger application. What good is a phone messenger app if I can't send someone a message on their phone number? Signal just works, I use it as my day to day sms app, and it shows me who of my friends also have signal so I text them on messenger if they do, and WhatsApp if they don't. So the real reason is Matrix just isn't even trying to compete with signal or WhatsApp, it's competing with MSN Messenger, which everyone stopped using over 15 years ago.

stryan 6y ago
Many people would consider that a feature rather then a bug, but that sounds like something with whatever identity server you're using. Element seems to be focusing more on the IRC/Slack/Discord style of communication though instead of Signal/WhatsApp. You can definitely use it for the latter (I use it for plenty of 1 on 1 conversations with RL friends) but right now it's more for channels and rooms and eventually Slack workspaces/Discord guilds. That's all on the client end though; I'm sure someone will eventually write a Matrix client that mimics Signal/WhatsApp etc more.
- crankyoldcrank 6y ago
  > that sounds like something with whatever identity server you're using. The relationships between the home server, identity server, and client on Matrix are not made clear in any user friendly way in the Matrix documentation for homeserver operators so I can't imagine it's clear for end users either. It's one of the things that I think keeps killing Matrix. Now let's see if Arathorn shows up to tell me how wrong I am. Wouldn't be the first time. Nothing inspires confidence in the maturity of a product like a CEO that joins discussions to tell users who've had bad experiences that it was their fault for not understanding the documentation. That's how Facebook got so big, don't you know? I'm absolutely obsessed with chat solutions like Matrix and Arathorn probably doesn't remember me but I remember his attitude towards my feedback.

markosaric 6y ago

have similar experience. struggled with Matrix/Element and with Signal too. the only app that works for non-techy audience in my experience is Telegram. i got several people to stick and continue using Telegram while i did not succeed with the other two. i guess better than Whatsapp in any case! on the other hand, we use Matrix for all the communication in our little startup. we got some integration going on such as rss feed and notifications about new signups etc. works great as a Slack alternative.

mkesper 6y ago
Signal works quite ok with my family members.
- maqp 6y ago
  Signal is one of the few good ones that show promise. They manage to deliver usable features. One fantastic thing is extremely picky userbase that's nagging about small details in the community forum. The developers seem to really get average users, and the commitment to privacy over feature adoption schedule means every feature is as polished as the latest cryptographic design allows it to be. This means every feature is an actual feature that gives more power to the users. Sure, there's stuff that indeed needs improvement, like usernames and registration without phone numbers, but once those come, it's likely to be polished enough not to require sudden knee-jerk patches like adding Google Captchas because a billion cryptocurrency scambots suddenly started spamming everyone, and there was no private Captcha alternative available. I love that Signal doesn't consider privacy an individual feature (like Telegram Secret Chats) or Matrix opt-in E2EE (something that was the case at least in the past). Everything is E2EE, it's an integral property of every feature, there's no risk of downgrade attacks because the codebase never contained a non-E2EE implementation of some feature in the first place. When working with TFC, I wanted the same with advanced properties like Onion Service based anonymity for everything, as well as endpoint security against key exfiltration, which I knew meant almost non-existent userbase due to the architectural design that requires custom HW data diode etc. I consider myself in a privileged position, I didn't have to consider every average user and that was almost exclusively due to the fact there was already a usable solution for networked TCBs, i.e. Signal, and a usable anonymity solution for networked TCBs (Ricochet and later Briar and soon cwtch.im). So I'm glad I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Signal, Briar and Cwtch are _the_ interesting platforms. Signal is slowly taking over Telegram in terms of usability, while Briar is experimenting with an incredibly fascinating stuff like blogs and forums hosted on your personal devices' Onion Service. You could theoretically run a clone of any social media platform page for yourself from your phone, once average phones are fast enough and use fast enough Internet (5G/Wifi6 etc) to make Tor snappy (enough). Who knows, perhaps by then Signal will also run over Tor.

twentydollars 6y ago

A lot of Linux-y people, including myself, reject Matrix. It's not the solution it claims to be. I could write a list of criticisms of Matrix's software products, organization, and track record, but the main problem is that we want an ip-native comms tool that's /actually/ decentralized. Matrix is Open Source, federated, self-hosted Slack (plus voice calls). That's great, but that leaves you needing to trust a homeserver admin or host your own homeserver. Putting aside that there STILL isn't a finished homeserver implementation, you'll have to rely on a third party no matter what. Either it's hacker Joe (the admin of your homeserver), or the server hosting company that hosts your homeserver, or the DNS registrar who legally has to have your real identity... It may be theoretically possible to host a homeserver without a domain name, but you'd still need to register your real name with an ISP to get a static IP. Freedom from this kind of control should be baked into the software. Plenty of teams have tried it (retroshare, Scuttlebutt, etc.) but unfortunately none of them are quite there yet.

m52go 6y ago
How is Matrix not the solution it claims to be? What's not /actually/ decentralized about it? Keep in mind software of this kind doesn't just [poof] appear out of nowhere...it's typically built incrementally on meager budgets. What you seem to want is a peer-to-peer solution, which at this point in time is not something Matrix has built or claims to have built.
- twentydollars 6y ago
  It's not decentralized because it's federated, client-server chat software. This is more decentralized than Discord or what-have-you, but it requires reliance on multiple centralized internet services and authorities, as I outlined. I'm well aware that FOSS projects tend to be underfunded. Matrix is an outlier with some large grants fueling the project and opaque organizational structure. > What you seem to want is a peer-to-peer solution, which at this point in time is not something Matrix has built or claims to have built. Peer-to-peer is not absolutely necessary (it can be both). There's nothing wrong with routing message through a network, but e2ee is absolutely necessary, and it took until May this year for Matrix to enable that feature by default. Most importantly, in Matrix, your identity is associated with and controlled by a homeserver. It's under someone else's control. That's not good... Your identity should be under your control. We've known how to do this with asymmetric encryption for at least a couple of decades.

suyash 6y ago

I use element - though hate using it, bugs me with annoying permissions every-time and it's yet another chat app from user point of view. User's already have to juggle Slack, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Discord so I'm very sympathetic to users who are resisting/not using it. The world doesn't need 100 chat apps, we need to consolidate all this into one single app, if there something that solves that problem, sign me up :)

Arathorn 6y ago
It shouldn't be bugging you with any permissions - what are they?
- suyash 6y ago
  try the web app and you'll see
phildenhoff 6y ago
Matrix can solve that problem if you lean more into it. There are a number of applications you can run called “bridges” that can pull all your WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack messages into Matrix rooms and push your replies out as your appropriate user. Then you’ve got all your chat in one place — that’s exactly how I use Matrix today.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  Bridges are an usability disaster. Most have been unreliable for many years. On multiple occasions I ended up talking to maintainers or developers due to bugs. It's been many years and you can barely use the official bridges for IRC and with many limitations.
  - roaur 6y ago
    I disagree that bridges are a usability disaster - they're Matrix's competitive advantage. I'm using mautrix-whatsapp, mautrix-hangouts and smsmatrix without any issues. Which bridges do you have problems with?

tomjen3 6y ago

Nerd here. I don't care to sign up for a chat service that my friends aren't using. I did look into matrix, but either I have to host a server myself or I will forever be stuck on one other guys server, right? Then there is no reason to move to it and it is not really anymore federated than email.

remirk 6y ago
In what way is it not federated like e-mail? > or I will forever be stuck on one other guys server, right This is valid criticism at the moment. There is work being allocated on fixing this issue, with multiple protocol drafts, but it might take a year a two before you can finally transfer accounts between servers.
- Arathorn 6y ago
  We're aiming to get portable accounts early next year, as part of the P2P work, using the approach at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2787 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2787. P2P Matrix is unusable without it.
  - remirk 6y ago
    Awesome! Thanks for the reply Matthew!
- tomjen3 6y ago
  I meant to say that it is not more federated than email: sure I can write to anybody using any service but my @gmail is forever bound to googles service. In my mind a true federated service would allow me to move my stuff from one place to any other place, kinda the way I can move my domain to a new host.

Arathorn 6y ago

Speaking as the project lead for Matrix (and Element) - we are doing everything we can to improve Element's UX. If you're interested in the details, go watch the first 5 minutes of this week's Matrix Live (our weekly podcast), where Amandine and I spell out how important this is; it's literally an existential threat to the project; and what we're doing to fix it: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/11/13/this-week-in-matrix-2020-11-13 https://matrix.org/blog/2020/11/13/this-week-in-matrix-2020-... Our goal is of course to use it as a replacement to WhatsApp / Telegram / Discord for social stuff, even though it's dominated by developers today. And we will get there (despite all the negativity on this thread :|)

Esras 6y ago
I appreciate all the work that you and your team have put into Element and Matrix over the last few years. While I still think there's plenty to go, I think there's been clear communication about what the project has worked on, what you're trying to do with it, and acceptance that certain features, while important, aren't as important as more core features. (My personal pet one is custom emoji, MSC1951). I still think that this is one of the more important open-source future-facing projects around and will continue supporting it, and urge others to, as well. If you dislike the hegemony of centralized services, then throw some money towards projects that support ideals you believe in.
- Arathorn 6y ago
  Thanks :) In terms of custom emoji, it may be worth checking out our new public roadmap for Element (which is new this week and hasn't yet been announced): https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1 https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1. On the plus side, custom emoji are on the roadmap. On the minus side, they're on the 'Later' column - so you can see where they stack up relative to other work. Agreed that they would make a massive difference. We will get there eventually though (or perhaps folks will contribute them sooner :)
  - schmorptron 6y ago
    I'd like to agree with the comment above yours that how communicative you are being and the openness about issues combined with the transparency of the project really raises my and probably many others' opinion of the project and that if you continue this way, it's really looking bright!

Akronymus 6y ago

I am part of a quite active community on matrix. Basically a split off of a subcommunity of a discord of a reddit community. (Specifically moving politics away from the community discord) So, it is possible to move people over, but it only really works in terms of batches of people and basically as a island of people, rather than integrated into the wider community.

servercobra 6y ago

I've never used Matrix and I'd love a replacement for Slack/Discord. But hearing "I generally steer them towards the Element clients" is going to be a huge turnoff for a lot of non-tech people. Even as a tech user, I don't really want to compare and research different clients to figure out which is best.

Evidlo 6y ago
What's preventing you from picking one at random, then?
- mircea 6y ago
  The Paradox of Choice.
feanaro 6y ago
What do you propose to do instead? To actively prevent people from creating clients for the protocol? The Element clients are the closest to what you could consider official clients, being made by the Element company, which does most of the Matrix design and development.
ryukafalz 6y ago
Imagine you've never heard of Gmail before. How does "I generally steer them towards the Gmail clients" sound if someone asks you about email?
- thekyle 6y ago
  I don't think that's a good example since Gmail is an email provider which can be used with any email client. Element is a Matrix client that can connect to a matrix provider.
- ohmaigad 6y ago
  The difference is in marketing. Gmail is a service with its own official app and so on. Matrix is a protcol, you can't market a protocol to regular people. Other than techies, nobody cares how their chat works as long it works so if you want to gain traction you market Element as the new hot messaging app and not Matrix the protocol.