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> federation is fake (stops working when matrix.org goes down) Can you elaborate on this, or link to some relevant resources?

• SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
  Matrix requires registration with some server. These servers are federated, but the biggest and most commonly used one is matrix.org. So if that's down, most users lose access.
  • q3k 5y ago
    But that's not fake federation, that's just federation and the reality that most people that can't be bothered to set up their own federated server? You can say that a fully distributed chat system would be better at this (like SSB [1]), but that's a totally different beast from a federated system. Matrix's federation is no worse than any other popular federated system I've used (eg. email and xmpp). I'm not saying it shouldn't be better (I dislike the matrix.org centralization, too), but that's not something inherent to Matrix, and I think it's not honest to bring it up as 'fake federation' in this context. Additionally, Matrix is significantly better at this in one way than the alternatives: even if matrix.org goes down, all rooms can continue working, even ones with a :matrix.org label. The same can't be said about XMPP MUC, IIUC. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt
    • SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
      I don't disagree with that, I'm not the OP who called it fake federation. I do think that federated systems tend to become centralized, because the federating links tend to be unreliable. I think people confuse federation and decentralization, when they're very different things.
  • tffgg 5y ago
    Less than a third loose access through their current server. They can sign up on a different server and have access again.