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That may be true, but I can’t encourage my social circle to move to an alternative that isn’t polished and has a great user experience for non-technical users.

That may be true, but I can’t encourage my social circle to move to an alternative that isn’t polished and has a great user experience for non-technical users. It’s a non starter. Even if I did, the moment they start using it and a) it’s confusing b) most of their circle is using something else, they’ll a) drop it b) ignore my future suggestions :). Take Matrix for example. I had heard of it but hadn’t really looked into it until now. There’s no official client, so you have to find your own. That’s already a barrier of entry for someone like my mom. Then I look led through their list of client apps, and it’s the usual issues with free client apps. They don’t look great, and the reviews claim they’re rough around the edges. Even my eyes glaze over at the thought of having to try out 3-4 different clients to find the one I like. I’d the goal is to move our communication infrastructure to use more open standards we have be realistic. And right now from what I can see, Matrix is still a solution for and by technical people. Asking my parents to move to it isn’t realistic at the moment.

Unklejoe 6y ago
> There’s no official client For all intents and purposes, Element is the official client. It used to be called Riot, but was recently renamed. Honestly, I think they should have just called it "Matrix". I'm guessing they didn't do that because they want to promote the concept of multiple clients without any single "official" client, but it would really simplify things. As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people.
- lucideer 6y ago
  > As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people. It is but I've found the email analogy helpful: prefixing your explanation with "it's like email" tends to open even non-technical people's mind to the idea of multiple clients + a unified protocol.
lucideer 6y ago
I've been encouraging my social circle to try FluffyChat[0]. I've only recently tried it myself but I would describe the client's I've tried as: - Riot/RiotX/Element is like Slack on Matrix - FluffyChat is like WhatsApp on Matrix [0] https://fluffychat.im/ https://fluffychat.im/

Unklejoe 6y ago

> There’s no official client For all intents and purposes, Element is the official client. It used to be called Riot, but was recently renamed. Honestly, I think they should have just called it "Matrix". I'm guessing they didn't do that because they want to promote the concept of multiple clients without any single "official" client, but it would really simplify things. As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people.

lucideer 6y ago
> As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people. It is but I've found the email analogy helpful: prefixing your explanation with "it's like email" tends to open even non-technical people's mind to the idea of multiple clients + a unified protocol.

lucideer 6y ago

I've been encouraging my social circle to try FluffyChat[0]. I've only recently tried it myself but I would describe the client's I've tried as: - Riot/RiotX/Element is like Slack on Matrix - FluffyChat is like WhatsApp on Matrix [0] https://fluffychat.im/ https://fluffychat.im/