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Whatever happened to matrix.org/vector/riot.im/element.io? (side note: most confusing branding ever :-/). Element seemed to be picking up some momentum a few mo

Whatever happened to matrix.org/vector/riot.im/element.io? (side note: most confusing branding ever :-/). Element seemed to be picking up some momentum a few months back. There was recent news that they acquired gitter too [1]. These days I only hear about slack exodus and discord this and discord that, though. If I get it right, from all the group messengers that appeared around 6 years ago, the only one with an open protocol seems to be Matrix, but it hasn't proven to be to their advantage, apparently. Only Element, Zulip and Mattermost are open source? Honorable mention: IRCCloud was a "hot thing" for a while, but it seems like it wasn't enough to revitalize IRC. [2] -- Appendix, initial releases: * Slack: August 2013; 7 years ago * Discord: May 13, 2015; 5 years ago * Mattermost: October 2, 2015; 5 years ago * Zulip: ca 2014, at least 5/6 years ago? * Matrix protocol: ca September 2014; 6 years ago * vector/riot/element: ca September 2016, 4 years ago -- 1: https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/30/element-acquires-gitter-to-get-more-developers-on-board-with-the-open-matrix-messaging-protocol/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/30/element-acquires-gitter-to... 2: https://www.irccloud.com/ https://www.irccloud.com/

na85 6y ago
I would love to see IRC make a comeback but the fact is IRC on mobile is a pain in the ass. Users want persistence and IRC is designed for the opposite.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- keyle 6y ago
  I agree. We should evolve the IRC spec to support the modern requirements of common users. Then web clients are just an addition. Call it IRC2 or anything if it offends the original IRC nerds (which I'm part of)
  - remexre 6y ago
    Well, there's IRCv3... Problem with multi-device is you need some way of authenticating multiple TCP connections as the same logical user, at which point a lot of IRC's simplicity of implementation has been lost. Whether that's a worthwhile sacrifice is a different question though; I think it might be (as a young IRC nerd).
    - Cloudef 6y ago
      Irc over ssh would solve that and add encryption as a bonus.
    - na85 6y ago
      I feel like certificate based authentication with the server as an optional usermode would solve that.
    - keyle 6y ago
      Yes, I had keys in mind. Some work definitely for UX improvements there, onboarding users.
- samdixon 6y ago
  That’s somewhat the solution irccloud provides, however they need a mobile app. I think the biggest issue with irc is the backlog. It’s somewhat nice to be able to easily search a companies chat history and find some context. The solution to that is correct documentation, however that problem is much harder.
  - amatecha 6y ago
    IRCCloud has had iOS and Android apps since 2016. :)
    - samdixon 6y ago
      Ha, then mark that problem solved :)
      - veb 6y ago
        Not only that, their apps are pretty good too.
    - na85 6y ago
      Signing up for a 3rd party service just to make IRC usable is too much friction to make onboarding new users viable.
- zests 6y ago
  IRC is pretty much perfect. No "X user is typing" messages. No ads, no tracking, no javascript. No hidden instance of chrome running. The community even self selects in to my own interests.
  - mvanbaak 6y ago
    Dont get why you are downvoted. You list exactly the reasons why we also use IRC.
- prophesi 6y ago
  Obligatory shoutout to https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ Self-hosted an instance two or so years ago and have never run into issues, besides the occasional kick to my reverse proxy. You can create accounts for your friends/family/coworkers, the web app is fast/clean on mobile, and chat logs are persistent.
molsongolden 6y ago
The Lounge[1] is an open source IRCCloud alternative for users who are comfortable with self-hosting and want an always on, web GUI, access from anywhere, works on mobile, IRC client. [1] https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/
amatecha 6y ago
Literally just signed up on element.io last night. Still using IRCCloud cuz it owns :)
SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago
Enterprises don't want federation. They want an easily searchable information repository much more than they want strong E2EE. They also don't see open source as an advantage. Matrix was focused on things that deter enterprise customers while Slack built a machine for locking them in.
- ithkuil 6y ago
  Enterprises may not want federation until they encounter a practical problem that just happens to be solved by federation. E.g. company/team acquisition, need to merge the chat ecosystems; don't want to disrupt the acquired team but you also need to have people in the rest of the company interact with existing channels etc. If both companies uses slack, the integration between such multiple accounts is possible.
  - callahad 6y ago
    Federation is also super useful if you're a multinational, since each geographic location could still operate autonomously in the face of an inability to route to the broader Internet. And with a protocol like Matrix, you're able to recover gracefully when federation is restored.
    - xyproto 6y ago
      This is nice to have, but how often does that really happen?
      - pferde 6y ago
        Even once is usually enough, for the larger companies.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  Do you think that's what's led to Slack's success though, that enterprises don't want federation? I don't really think so. If Slack had exactly the same UX as it has but federated, I don't think that would have deterred very many customers. Maybe a few that have come on only after Slack already got so big.
jlkuester7 6y ago
> the only one with an open protocol seems to be Matrix, but it hasn't proven to be to their advantage I guess it depends on what you mean by "their advantage". Designing and promulgating an actual open federated protocol is way harder/time-consuming than doing the same for a closed proprietary one. So taking this approach has only hurt their flexibility and speed-to-market for features. However, if done right, an open protocol can be way more advantageous to the global community as a whole! IMHO Matrix started out as just another crazy moonshot. "Let's make something like email and xmpp only better." But, fast-forward to now and they have built a very usable chat ecosystem with multiple server implementations and many clients. My hope is that things like this Slack acquisition (and the inevitable cooperate shenanigan that will follow) will continue to push individuals and companies to invest in open federate-able alternatives.
Triv888 6y ago
I started using it when it was riot.im but it didn't work any better when they renamed it element and it made it just a bit harder to find while it was not really that popular already... I think they just tried to cash in a bit instead of a lot (or shot themselves in the foot)
IceWreck 6y ago
I think you're missing out RocketChat
- emmanueloga_ 6y ago
  Oh! Seems like it's been around at least since 2015, it is open source, and it supports audio and video chat. Pretty impressive... and yet, I truly forgot about it! 1: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/graphs/contributors https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/graphs/contributor...
miloignis 6y ago
I don't think anything's happened to Matrix, it continues to develop and grow at what, at least as it feels to me, a slow and steady pace. I tried it towards the beginning, after a few years, and am currently on it again, running my own homeserver, and it's been getting better and better each time. It's definitely still got a few rough edges, but it's both much more reliable and much more fully featured than in the past. E2EE is finally very easy on the flagship clients, which is a pretty great achivement on an open federated system. Anyway, I think it's still here and growing, but it pops into the HN consciousness every now and again. That doesn't mean it's popularity is similarly varied :)
Arathorn 6y ago
Matrix is doing pretty well (although I might be biased, being project lead). For instance, the entirety of the German military announced moving over to Matrix using a fork of Element a few days ago: https://sifted.eu/articles/european-armies-matrix/ https://sifted.eu/articles/european-armies-matrix/, and there are several other (very) major governments beyond France & Germany who are switching to Matrix in order to get end-to-end-encrypted interoperable comms that they can run themselves. Hopefully we should be able to announce them in the coming months :) Meanwhile, we're about to finish the main milestones of making Gitter natively speak Matrix (planning to announce on Thursday), and on the FOSS side in general, Mozilla has successfully moved over entirely to Matrix for community facing work (https://matrix.org/blog/2020/03/03/moznet-irc-is-dead-long-live-mozilla-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2020/03/03/moznet-irc-is-dead-long-l...), and a few other similar sized open source projects are in the process of finalising doing the same manoeuvre; watch which this space for updates. https://element.debian.social/ https://element.debian.social/ looks to be a thing, for instance :) In terms of naming, it's really not hard: Matrix is the protocol; the core team set up a company called New Vector who made a flagship Matrix client called Riot, but we then renamed both the company and the app to be Element in order to simplify things. Hopefully most people have forgotten the renaming and moved on by now. In terms of what's next for Matrix: * Loads of effort making Element more mainstream-friendly; going through improving the UX and making it consistent cross-platform and predictable for new users. The approach we're taking is to film new users using the service, and literally tight-loop fixing the thinkos that they trip over until they stop tripping over. It sounds obvious, and we should have done it years ago, but it's starting to make a big difference. The first wave of changes ship in the next 2 weeks. * Social login - implementing OIDC Connect to simplify onboarding if you're willing to hand over your identity to an existing identity provider (Github/Gitlab/Apple/Twitter/Google/FB) * We're in the middle of implementing Spaces - super fun feature to define arbitrary hierarchies of rooms; a bit like discord servers, or slack workspaces, or possibly a usenet hierarchy or IMAP folder tree depending on how you squint. We're hoping to get the first cut out by the end of the year, which is super fun. * We're also working hard on freeform threading (you too could implement HN/Reddit/Email/NNTP/Twitter on Matrix if you want!). https://github.com/matrix-org/cerulean https://github.com/matrix-org/cerulean has some details for the intrepid. * Peer-to-Peer Matrix is going great guns; we've just finished the first cut of a new P2P overlay network called Pinecone (based on Yggdrasil, but using source routing). * We've almost finished a wave of work to make 1:1 VoIP not suck; fixes are already shipping in Element on all platforms, but we're almost at the point where VoIP is robust and reliable rather than a quick proof-of-concept which we'd not had a chance to ever really polish. * Finally, lots of work queued up to make end-to-end encryption more usable. Particularly, chasing bugs where encryption fails (we just fixed a major one in iOS for instance, which shipped a few days ago, thanks to the Push service extension sometimes racing with the main Element process desyncing). We're also looking at simplifying the E2EE key recovery process and just switching to using the same password to both login and decrypt your messages, rather than separate login password & security passphrases as we have today. I could go on, but TL;DR: I think "the only one with an open protocol seems to be Matrix, but it hasn't proven to be to their advantage, apparently." is bogus. We'd just be another random open source chat webapp if it wasn't for Matrix; instead it's a global open network with 25+ million users and about 60,000 servers. So not yet as big as Email or the Web, but bigger than (say) bitcoin, and continuing to grow exponentially.
Cu3PO42 6y ago
After making an account a couple years ago I came back to Element a few days ago. Mostly, it's fine/good. It works as I expect text chat too, including the niceties we've come to expect by now. One thing that really stood out to me is that you can cross-sign your device certificates! That means your chat partners don't need to verify the signatures of all your device keys, but only one. Even though this is the only good option (in my opinion), the only other messenger that does this that I'm aware of is iMessage. I wish more people used it. Not just individually, but for their communities. There's a couple of good bridges which I intend to try, to bring my Signal/Telegram/... contacts all into one place, but you need not only the bridge, you also need to host your own homeserver and I haven't made the dive into all of that yet.
callahad 6y ago
I joined Element about a month ago (we're hiring! https://element.io/careers https://element.io/careers) and now that I'm on the inside, I'm genuinely optimistic about our trajectory. We're not taking over the world overnight, but we are steadily growing. From a business perspective, data sovereignty and end-to-end encryption seem to be really potent differentiators for certain market segments, especially government. To wit, the French government has a massive Matrix deployment under the name "Tchap", and the German military began rolling out a similar initiative called "BwMessenger" last month: https://esut.de/en/2020/11/meldungen/24138/matrix-messenger-fuer-die-bundeswehr/ https://esut.de/en/2020/11/meldungen/24138/matrix-messenger-... On the opposite end of the spectrum you've got Mozilla, who replaced their IRC network with open, federated Matrix and saw greater far greater community engagement as a result. October also saw a commercial entity (Famedly.com) begin sponsoring the development of a third-party homeserver implemented in Rust (Conduit). So we're starting to see glimmers of a potential ecosystem around the Matrix protocol independent of Element. We don't have the same pop culture buzz as Slack or Discord, but I absolutely think there is something of substance here.
- callahad 6y ago
  As an aside: Having come to Element from Mozilla, it's really weird to work somewhere with multiple large, paying customers. It gives me hope that we'll be able to maintain the runway we need to reach critical mass, one use case at a time.
- j1elo 6y ago
  The latest open source project that caught my eye in terms of the chosen chat technology was Servo, which has chosen Zulip [0]. Hopefully, in a not too distant future, we'll start seeing more communities opting for Matrix? [0]: https://blog.servo.org/2020/11/17/servo-home/ https://blog.servo.org/2020/11/17/servo-home/
  - Arathorn 6y ago
    Clearly we just need to get Zulip talking Matrix and we can all live together in one big {Zulip, Element, Gitter, IRC, XMPP} happy family :D Edit: not forgetting XMPP via the actually-usable-these-days bifrost bridge! https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-bifrost https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-bifrost
djsumdog 6y ago
I run Matrix/Element on my self-hosted server (address in my profile) and it's great for chatting with people on the Fediverse (Mastodon/Pleroma/Peertube/etc.) as a lot of people in that world also use Matrix and have their addresses posted in their profile. Corporations don't want to spend the manpower to run something like this, considering Slack is relatively cheap and Teams just comes with their Azure/Office365 license. It's more for hobbyists and hacker types. If you want a nice mobile client for Matrix, try out FluffyChat. It supports room emojis!
- callahad 6y ago
  > It's more for hobbyists and hacker types. That's been the most disorienting part of joining Element. We have kind of a bimodal distribution of constituencies with peaks both on the enthusiast side and the boring bureaucratic government side. The mass market in the middle won't know what hit 'em! ;)
vector_spaces 6y ago
Element / Matrix are great in principle, but it's probably not helping that there are fatal bugs in the iOS app that break core functionality (see [1]). Outside of that, it has major issues with accessibility in general -- user facing documentation is non-existent, for example. Users on my server complain sometimes that they feel they need to have a degree in computer science to do simple things. I feel like Element's complications around branding are a great metaphor for the Matrix ecosystem in general It's a shame -- I'm hopeful that the situation will be better in the next year or so, but if these issues aren't corrected I can't see how they won't forever be in the shadow of mainstream apps like Slack, who have much stronger sensibilities around UX and accessibility (dark patterns and lack of E2EE notwithstanding). [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3762 https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3762
- Arathorn 6y ago
  I'm fairly sure that bug was fixed 11 days ago by https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-sdk/pull/950 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-sdk/pull/950, released in Element iOS 1.1.1 on Nov 26th. In terms of improving documentation and usability, we're on the case, as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25270858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25270858
Groxx 6y ago
To add to the honorable mention: I've been very happy with irccloud, though yeah I agree - IRC is still waning. I don't do anything crazy with it, but it has been fast, simple, and reliable - no complaints at all, which is quite rare.
chrysoprace 6y ago
I self-host a Matrix instance and it's great. It's just the network thing where you need your friends to hop on it before it gains much value. In the meantime, Matrix makes it possible (not trivial, in my experience) to bridge to other chat services. Bridging requires a fair bit of technical know-how.

na85 6y ago

I would love to see IRC make a comeback but the fact is IRC on mobile is a pain in the ass. Users want persistence and IRC is designed for the opposite.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
keyle 6y ago
I agree. We should evolve the IRC spec to support the modern requirements of common users. Then web clients are just an addition. Call it IRC2 or anything if it offends the original IRC nerds (which I'm part of)
- remexre 6y ago
  Well, there's IRCv3... Problem with multi-device is you need some way of authenticating multiple TCP connections as the same logical user, at which point a lot of IRC's simplicity of implementation has been lost. Whether that's a worthwhile sacrifice is a different question though; I think it might be (as a young IRC nerd).
  - Cloudef 6y ago
    Irc over ssh would solve that and add encryption as a bonus.
  - na85 6y ago
    I feel like certificate based authentication with the server as an optional usermode would solve that.
  - keyle 6y ago
    Yes, I had keys in mind. Some work definitely for UX improvements there, onboarding users.
samdixon 6y ago
That’s somewhat the solution irccloud provides, however they need a mobile app. I think the biggest issue with irc is the backlog. It’s somewhat nice to be able to easily search a companies chat history and find some context. The solution to that is correct documentation, however that problem is much harder.
- amatecha 6y ago
  IRCCloud has had iOS and Android apps since 2016. :)
  - samdixon 6y ago
    Ha, then mark that problem solved :)
    - veb 6y ago
      Not only that, their apps are pretty good too.
  - na85 6y ago
    Signing up for a 3rd party service just to make IRC usable is too much friction to make onboarding new users viable.
zests 6y ago
IRC is pretty much perfect. No "X user is typing" messages. No ads, no tracking, no javascript. No hidden instance of chrome running. The community even self selects in to my own interests.
- mvanbaak 6y ago
  Dont get why you are downvoted. You list exactly the reasons why we also use IRC.
prophesi 6y ago
Obligatory shoutout to https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ Self-hosted an instance two or so years ago and have never run into issues, besides the occasional kick to my reverse proxy. You can create accounts for your friends/family/coworkers, the web app is fast/clean on mobile, and chat logs are persistent.

molsongolden 6y ago

The Lounge[1] is an open source IRCCloud alternative for users who are comfortable with self-hosting and want an always on, web GUI, access from anywhere, works on mobile, IRC client. [1] https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/

amatecha 6y ago

Literally just signed up on element.io last night. Still using IRCCloud cuz it owns :)

SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago

Enterprises don't want federation. They want an easily searchable information repository much more than they want strong E2EE. They also don't see open source as an advantage. Matrix was focused on things that deter enterprise customers while Slack built a machine for locking them in.

ithkuil 6y ago
Enterprises may not want federation until they encounter a practical problem that just happens to be solved by federation. E.g. company/team acquisition, need to merge the chat ecosystems; don't want to disrupt the acquired team but you also need to have people in the rest of the company interact with existing channels etc. If both companies uses slack, the integration between such multiple accounts is possible.
- callahad 6y ago
  Federation is also super useful if you're a multinational, since each geographic location could still operate autonomously in the face of an inability to route to the broader Internet. And with a protocol like Matrix, you're able to recover gracefully when federation is restored.
  - xyproto 6y ago
    This is nice to have, but how often does that really happen?
    - pferde 6y ago
      Even once is usually enough, for the larger companies.
jrochkind1 6y ago
Do you think that's what's led to Slack's success though, that enterprises don't want federation? I don't really think so. If Slack had exactly the same UX as it has but federated, I don't think that would have deterred very many customers. Maybe a few that have come on only after Slack already got so big.

jlkuester7 6y ago

> the only one with an open protocol seems to be Matrix, but it hasn't proven to be to their advantage I guess it depends on what you mean by "their advantage". Designing and promulgating an actual open federated protocol is way harder/time-consuming than doing the same for a closed proprietary one. So taking this approach has only hurt their flexibility and speed-to-market for features. However, if done right, an open protocol can be way more advantageous to the global community as a whole! IMHO Matrix started out as just another crazy moonshot. "Let's make something like email and xmpp only better." But, fast-forward to now and they have built a very usable chat ecosystem with multiple server implementations and many clients. My hope is that things like this Slack acquisition (and the inevitable cooperate shenanigan that will follow) will continue to push individuals and companies to invest in open federate-able alternatives.

Triv888 6y ago

I started using it when it was riot.im but it didn't work any better when they renamed it element and it made it just a bit harder to find while it was not really that popular already... I think they just tried to cash in a bit instead of a lot (or shot themselves in the foot)

IceWreck 6y ago

I think you're missing out RocketChat

emmanueloga_ 6y ago
Oh! Seems like it's been around at least since 2015, it is open source, and it supports audio and video chat. Pretty impressive... and yet, I truly forgot about it! 1: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/graphs/contributors https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/graphs/contributor...

miloignis 6y ago

I don't think anything's happened to Matrix, it continues to develop and grow at what, at least as it feels to me, a slow and steady pace. I tried it towards the beginning, after a few years, and am currently on it again, running my own homeserver, and it's been getting better and better each time. It's definitely still got a few rough edges, but it's both much more reliable and much more fully featured than in the past. E2EE is finally very easy on the flagship clients, which is a pretty great achivement on an open federated system. Anyway, I think it's still here and growing, but it pops into the HN consciousness every now and again. That doesn't mean it's popularity is similarly varied :)

Arathorn 6y ago

Matrix is doing pretty well (although I might be biased, being project lead). For instance, the entirety of the German military announced moving over to Matrix using a fork of Element a few days ago: https://sifted.eu/articles/european-armies-matrix/ https://sifted.eu/articles/european-armies-matrix/, and there are several other (very) major governments beyond France & Germany who are switching to Matrix in order to get end-to-end-encrypted interoperable comms that they can run themselves. Hopefully we should be able to announce them in the coming months :) Meanwhile, we're about to finish the main milestones of making Gitter natively speak Matrix (planning to announce on Thursday), and on the FOSS side in general, Mozilla has successfully moved over entirely to Matrix for community facing work (https://matrix.org/blog/2020/03/03/moznet-irc-is-dead-long-live-mozilla-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2020/03/03/moznet-irc-is-dead-long-l...), and a few other similar sized open source projects are in the process of finalising doing the same manoeuvre; watch which this space for updates. https://element.debian.social/ https://element.debian.social/ looks to be a thing, for instance :) In terms of naming, it's really not hard: Matrix is the protocol; the core team set up a company called New Vector who made a flagship Matrix client called Riot, but we then renamed both the company and the app to be Element in order to simplify things. Hopefully most people have forgotten the renaming and moved on by now. In terms of what's next for Matrix: * Loads of effort making Element more mainstream-friendly; going through improving the UX and making it consistent cross-platform and predictable for new users. The approach we're taking is to film new users using the service, and literally tight-loop fixing the thinkos that they trip over until they stop tripping over. It sounds obvious, and we should have done it years ago, but it's starting to make a big difference. The first wave of changes ship in the next 2 weeks. * Social login - implementing OIDC Connect to simplify onboarding if you're willing to hand over your identity to an existing identity provider (Github/Gitlab/Apple/Twitter/Google/FB) * We're in the middle of implementing Spaces - super fun feature to define arbitrary hierarchies of rooms; a bit like discord servers, or slack workspaces, or possibly a usenet hierarchy or IMAP folder tree depending on how you squint. We're hoping to get the first cut out by the end of the year, which is super fun. * We're also working hard on freeform threading (you too could implement HN/Reddit/Email/NNTP/Twitter on Matrix if you want!). https://github.com/matrix-org/cerulean https://github.com/matrix-org/cerulean has some details for the intrepid. * Peer-to-Peer Matrix is going great guns; we've just finished the first cut of a new P2P overlay network called Pinecone (based on Yggdrasil, but using source routing). * We've almost finished a wave of work to make 1:1 VoIP not suck; fixes are already shipping in Element on all platforms, but we're almost at the point where VoIP is robust and reliable rather than a quick proof-of-concept which we'd not had a chance to ever really polish. * Finally, lots of work queued up to make end-to-end encryption more usable. Particularly, chasing bugs where encryption fails (we just fixed a major one in iOS for instance, which shipped a few days ago, thanks to the Push service extension sometimes racing with the main Element process desyncing). We're also looking at simplifying the E2EE key recovery process and just switching to using the same password to both login and decrypt your messages, rather than separate login password & security passphrases as we have today. I could go on, but TL;DR: I think "the only one with an open protocol seems to be Matrix, but it hasn't proven to be to their advantage, apparently." is bogus. We'd just be another random open source chat webapp if it wasn't for Matrix; instead it's a global open network with 25+ million users and about 60,000 servers. So not yet as big as Email or the Web, but bigger than (say) bitcoin, and continuing to grow exponentially.

Cu3PO42 6y ago

After making an account a couple years ago I came back to Element a few days ago. Mostly, it's fine/good. It works as I expect text chat too, including the niceties we've come to expect by now. One thing that really stood out to me is that you can cross-sign your device certificates! That means your chat partners don't need to verify the signatures of all your device keys, but only one. Even though this is the only good option (in my opinion), the only other messenger that does this that I'm aware of is iMessage. I wish more people used it. Not just individually, but for their communities. There's a couple of good bridges which I intend to try, to bring my Signal/Telegram/... contacts all into one place, but you need not only the bridge, you also need to host your own homeserver and I haven't made the dive into all of that yet.

callahad 6y ago

I joined Element about a month ago (we're hiring! https://element.io/careers https://element.io/careers) and now that I'm on the inside, I'm genuinely optimistic about our trajectory. We're not taking over the world overnight, but we are steadily growing. From a business perspective, data sovereignty and end-to-end encryption seem to be really potent differentiators for certain market segments, especially government. To wit, the French government has a massive Matrix deployment under the name "Tchap", and the German military began rolling out a similar initiative called "BwMessenger" last month: https://esut.de/en/2020/11/meldungen/24138/matrix-messenger-fuer-die-bundeswehr/ https://esut.de/en/2020/11/meldungen/24138/matrix-messenger-... On the opposite end of the spectrum you've got Mozilla, who replaced their IRC network with open, federated Matrix and saw greater far greater community engagement as a result. October also saw a commercial entity (Famedly.com) begin sponsoring the development of a third-party homeserver implemented in Rust (Conduit). So we're starting to see glimmers of a potential ecosystem around the Matrix protocol independent of Element. We don't have the same pop culture buzz as Slack or Discord, but I absolutely think there is something of substance here.

callahad 6y ago
As an aside: Having come to Element from Mozilla, it's really weird to work somewhere with multiple large, paying customers. It gives me hope that we'll be able to maintain the runway we need to reach critical mass, one use case at a time.
j1elo 6y ago
The latest open source project that caught my eye in terms of the chosen chat technology was Servo, which has chosen Zulip [0]. Hopefully, in a not too distant future, we'll start seeing more communities opting for Matrix? [0]: https://blog.servo.org/2020/11/17/servo-home/ https://blog.servo.org/2020/11/17/servo-home/
- Arathorn 6y ago
  Clearly we just need to get Zulip talking Matrix and we can all live together in one big {Zulip, Element, Gitter, IRC, XMPP} happy family :D Edit: not forgetting XMPP via the actually-usable-these-days bifrost bridge! https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-bifrost https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-bifrost

djsumdog 6y ago

I run Matrix/Element on my self-hosted server (address in my profile) and it's great for chatting with people on the Fediverse (Mastodon/Pleroma/Peertube/etc.) as a lot of people in that world also use Matrix and have their addresses posted in their profile. Corporations don't want to spend the manpower to run something like this, considering Slack is relatively cheap and Teams just comes with their Azure/Office365 license. It's more for hobbyists and hacker types. If you want a nice mobile client for Matrix, try out FluffyChat. It supports room emojis!

callahad 6y ago
> It's more for hobbyists and hacker types. That's been the most disorienting part of joining Element. We have kind of a bimodal distribution of constituencies with peaks both on the enthusiast side and the boring bureaucratic government side. The mass market in the middle won't know what hit 'em! ;)

vector_spaces 6y ago

Element / Matrix are great in principle, but it's probably not helping that there are fatal bugs in the iOS app that break core functionality (see [1]). Outside of that, it has major issues with accessibility in general -- user facing documentation is non-existent, for example. Users on my server complain sometimes that they feel they need to have a degree in computer science to do simple things. I feel like Element's complications around branding are a great metaphor for the Matrix ecosystem in general It's a shame -- I'm hopeful that the situation will be better in the next year or so, but if these issues aren't corrected I can't see how they won't forever be in the shadow of mainstream apps like Slack, who have much stronger sensibilities around UX and accessibility (dark patterns and lack of E2EE notwithstanding). [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3762 https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3762

Arathorn 6y ago
I'm fairly sure that bug was fixed 11 days ago by https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-sdk/pull/950 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-sdk/pull/950, released in Element iOS 1.1.1 on Nov 26th. In terms of improving documentation and usability, we're on the case, as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25270858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25270858

Groxx 6y ago

To add to the honorable mention: I've been very happy with irccloud, though yeah I agree - IRC is still waning. I don't do anything crazy with it, but it has been fast, simple, and reliable - no complaints at all, which is quite rare.

chrysoprace 6y ago

I self-host a Matrix instance and it's great. It's just the network thing where you need your friends to hop on it before it gains much value. In the meantime, Matrix makes it possible (not trivial, in my experience) to bridge to other chat services. Bridging requires a fair bit of technical know-how.