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> There is no "main" server. matrix.org is the biggest one, but it is circunstancial. It's not circumstantial at all. You can't send off people to random serve

> There is no "main" server. matrix.org is the biggest one, but it is circunstancial. It's not circumstantial at all. You can't send off people to random server without telling them it might shut down because no one knows the owner or when he's going to stop paying for his experience. @matrix.org is the only place where I'd feel safe sending relatives if they want to onboard because it's the only place I know the matrix guys are going to keep running. Most posts I am seeing on HN these days stating registering a matrix account was easy did it on matrix.org. I believe they should charge a fee. To avoid the GMail effect that got everyone a free email but trapped them in the end. And no, you can't jump as easily from one @something to @somethingelse because you lose your message history and attachments (that's where the often cited mail analogy fails us: with email you can take your email with you when switching). If this chat history doesn't matter BUT you have to find a way to export your contacts then I don't see why it's better than Signal for regular joes. Two years ago I could run my own matrix instance on a small VPS. Now it requires too much resources, especially when it's federated. Also, the mail federation analogy falls short here because nothing prevents mail from circulating between @something and @somethingelse while matrix has it in its design to whitelist some federated servers. > https://communick.com https://communick.com, there you go. Not what I mean. I am not looking to forward this to people asking me "hey, how do I get on matrix ?" "here, set up or buy your own server". Where can I send them when all they want and need is a matrix address ? Where can they pay a small fee to keep their matrix address longterm without going through the hassle of maintaining/renting a server ? Matrix.org But we don't see a rush of new users on Matrix. I wish there were though but I am convinced Matrix and Signal don't address the needs of the same people. And that's certainly why every signal thread seem to attract matrix supporters and we get into that federated/centralized debate. Which has been beaten to death.

rglullis 6y ago
> Where can I send them when all they want and need is a matrix address ? Where can they pay a small fee to keep their matrix address longterm without going through the hassle of maintaining/renting a server? Have you seen communick? It's exactly that: a service that provides managed accounts for federated services such as Matrix/Mastodon/XMPP for a small fee. No server setup required.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  Yes I did on mobile and thought it was some hosted solutions. When I got back to it to check it out again on the desktop the page is missing CSS (firefox) and from the text I thought it really was some server hosting. I was wrong. I checked again and on Chrome you have the full site and if I am not mistaken, for $5 for three months you get a mastodon, a matrix (and a xmpp) identity which is pretty cool (or it's cumulative, I don't know. But $20/y for messaging should be okay, though it's still far away from whatsapp $1 subscription). This page needs some love but it's exactly what I had in mind :).
  - rglullis 6y ago
    Definitely needs a lot of love. Thanks for letting me know about Firefox not showing CSS. Seems like I have a SSL certificate issue. Regarding pricing: It's $5 dollar/3 months for all three services and it gives you 10 accounts. So it's actually $2/user/year. Mind you, this is a "soft launch" pricing (as you could see, plenty of work to be done there) and my idea is to grandfather in the first 100 signups. Once I iron out the most critical bugs, I am working with the idea of charging $1/month ($10/year) for single users and $6/month ($60/year) for the 10-user package.
    - johnchristopher 6y ago
      It's not critical to me but do you plan on supporting external domains ?
      - rglullis 6y ago
        Do you mean fully managed instances? Yes. It hasn't been my first priority because there is already a good number of companies offering that for Mastodon, Matrix and XMPP - but I'd certainly want to get to this point as well.

rglullis 6y ago

> Where can I send them when all they want and need is a matrix address ? Where can they pay a small fee to keep their matrix address longterm without going through the hassle of maintaining/renting a server? Have you seen communick? It's exactly that: a service that provides managed accounts for federated services such as Matrix/Mastodon/XMPP for a small fee. No server setup required.

johnchristopher 6y ago
Yes I did on mobile and thought it was some hosted solutions. When I got back to it to check it out again on the desktop the page is missing CSS (firefox) and from the text I thought it really was some server hosting. I was wrong. I checked again and on Chrome you have the full site and if I am not mistaken, for $5 for three months you get a mastodon, a matrix (and a xmpp) identity which is pretty cool (or it's cumulative, I don't know. But $20/y for messaging should be okay, though it's still far away from whatsapp $1 subscription). This page needs some love but it's exactly what I had in mind :).
- rglullis 6y ago
  Definitely needs a lot of love. Thanks for letting me know about Firefox not showing CSS. Seems like I have a SSL certificate issue. Regarding pricing: It's $5 dollar/3 months for all three services and it gives you 10 accounts. So it's actually $2/user/year. Mind you, this is a "soft launch" pricing (as you could see, plenty of work to be done there) and my idea is to grandfather in the first 100 signups. Once I iron out the most critical bugs, I am working with the idea of charging $1/month ($10/year) for single users and $6/month ($60/year) for the 10-user package.
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    It's not critical to me but do you plan on supporting external domains ?
    - rglullis 6y ago
      Do you mean fully managed instances? Yes. It hasn't been my first priority because there is already a good number of companies offering that for Mastodon, Matrix and XMPP - but I'd certainly want to get to this point as well.