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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 tri

by 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.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    > Now let's see if Arathorn shows up to tell me how wrong I am. You may want to consider how your (seemingly legitimate) comments about the documentation might sound to Arathorn, who is obviously working hard to engage with the community and owes you nothing. For comparison, Arathorn seems to have engaged constructively with other more polite comments in this discussion.
    - crankyoldcrank 6y ago
      I know how they sound, I'm a software engineer and users are whiny little bitches, especially on public forums. A professional wouldn't even engage with me, they'd note my feedback and move on -- I wasn't replying to him and didn't know who he was until he told me just how wrong I was. Now I know he's an asshole. Simple. An asshole with a really shit reference implementation for an overcomplicated protocol that only technically does what it claims, with little practical benefit. Frankly to me, Matrix belongs in the same basket as Urbit: weird software for nerds written by eccentric assholes that are too pretentious to explain it to regular people because doing so would make their protocol less special and thereby self sabotaging adoption The sooner Matrix is forked or better yet, dies, so that it stops stealing mind share from better projects, the better.
m4rtink 6y ago
All the points you make only mean that Matrix is a proper federated privacy minding IM system. I hate all the messengers that make you friends rat out their full phone address book (including your private phone number!) with a passion and I am very glade Matrix has not succumbed to this predatory practice like many others.
fishywang 6y ago
the old riot.im mobile clients does have the feature to tell you which of your contacts are already on matrix. the feature was said to be "coming" to the new client but not yet. not sure what's the real plan for it.
- Arathorn 6y ago
  We're in the process of adding it back into Element Android. It's still there on Element iOS. Totally agreed that the app should help you discover people to talk to, which is what we're doing. If you're interested, https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/issues/10 https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/issues/10 is the relevant issue on the public Element roadmap: https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1 https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    It seems to me that people don't understand how morally wrong is to just give phone numbers of your friends (or even just some easily reversible hashes of those) to a third party for these contact matching schemes. If someone gives me their phone number I would find it to be extremely rude to them if I just pass it to some third party without their consent. And most people likely do in normal life: "Hey Bob, can I give your phone number to Alice ? She would like to buy that furniture you re selling." Yep people will just give their full phonebook to a third party so they can see who else is one the service (and betrayed their thrust by giving it their phone number!). I really hope this is just UX dark patterns, where the apps ask for phone book access but don't explicitly tell users how they are doing this matching. Users doing this willingly would be much worse...
Cloudef 6y ago
>it's competing with MSN Messenger, which everyone stopped using over 15 years ago. I would say people didn't stop using it, rather than the service got axed.

by tinco 6y 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.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > Now let's see if Arathorn shows up to tell me how wrong I am. You may want to consider how your (seemingly legitimate) comments about the documentation might sound to Arathorn, who is obviously working hard to engage with the community and owes you nothing. For comparison, Arathorn seems to have engaged constructively with other more polite comments in this discussion.
  - crankyoldcrank 6y ago
    I know how they sound, I'm a software engineer and users are whiny little bitches, especially on public forums. A professional wouldn't even engage with me, they'd note my feedback and move on -- I wasn't replying to him and didn't know who he was until he told me just how wrong I was. Now I know he's an asshole. Simple. An asshole with a really shit reference implementation for an overcomplicated protocol that only technically does what it claims, with little practical benefit. Frankly to me, Matrix belongs in the same basket as Urbit: weird software for nerds written by eccentric assholes that are too pretentious to explain it to regular people because doing so would make their protocol less special and thereby self sabotaging adoption The sooner Matrix is forked or better yet, dies, so that it stops stealing mind share from better projects, the better.

m4rtink 6y ago

All the points you make only mean that Matrix is a proper federated privacy minding IM system. I hate all the messengers that make you friends rat out their full phone address book (including your private phone number!) with a passion and I am very glade Matrix has not succumbed to this predatory practice like many others.

fishywang 6y ago

the old riot.im mobile clients does have the feature to tell you which of your contacts are already on matrix. the feature was said to be "coming" to the new client but not yet. not sure what's the real plan for it.

Arathorn 6y ago
We're in the process of adding it back into Element Android. It's still there on Element iOS. Totally agreed that the app should help you discover people to talk to, which is what we're doing. If you're interested, https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/issues/10 https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/issues/10 is the relevant issue on the public Element roadmap: https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1 https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1
- m4rtink 6y ago
  It seems to me that people don't understand how morally wrong is to just give phone numbers of your friends (or even just some easily reversible hashes of those) to a third party for these contact matching schemes. If someone gives me their phone number I would find it to be extremely rude to them if I just pass it to some third party without their consent. And most people likely do in normal life: "Hey Bob, can I give your phone number to Alice ? She would like to buy that furniture you re selling." Yep people will just give their full phonebook to a third party so they can see who else is one the service (and betrayed their thrust by giving it their phone number!). I really hope this is just UX dark patterns, where the apps ask for phone book access but don't explicitly tell users how they are doing this matching. Users doing this willingly would be much worse...

Cloudef 6y ago

>it's competing with MSN Messenger, which everyone stopped using over 15 years ago. I would say people didn't stop using it, rather than the service got axed.