5 ms·

Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, "just work", and it's zero effort to download, sign up, find contacts and start chatting. Matrix/Element is "good enough", but th

by yosito 5y ago

Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, "just work", and it's zero effort to download, sign up, find contacts and start chatting. Matrix/Element is "good enough", but there's a lot of friction for each of those steps. Even I, as a technical person, get frustrated that there's some problem with my Matrix server every few weeks that I have to spend my time troubleshooting, sometimes missing timely messages because of it, or at least losing time that I'd rather be spending on other things.

johnisgood 5y ago
> there's some problem with my Matrix server Yeah, but grandparents (or whoever you are trying to introduce to Matrix) are not supposed to set up and run a Matrix server. If you meant that as an end-user you are having issues with the server you are on, perhaps you should use a different one. I have been using Element for quite a while now with matrix.org as my server, and I did not have any problems with the server I am on. The client is indeed buggy a bit[1]. Some bugs have been fixed since then though. If you run into bugs, report them please. [1] There are many clients now for Android alone, for example, from F-Droid. Perhaps they are less buggier. I do not know.
- yosito 5y ago
  It's not that I don't know how to solve the problems I face, it's that using Matrix requires more problem solving and has more friction, and that's one big reason why it's not the most popular choice.
  - johnisgood 5y ago
    Like I said: not necessarily. I did not have any issues with it for a very long time. I did no problem solving. It is achievable in most cases. Stick to well-known clients and servers. Again, there may be bugs. They will get fixed. It happens all the time with any software. Element is maturing. It is really easy to just download and use without any problems.
  - jeltz 5y ago
    No it does not. I just created an account at matrix.org and it worked fine. Does their client have bugs? Yes, but most chat clients have bugs. The only chat clients which have given me extra headache are WhatsApp (trying to get their web client to work and tryibg to stop them from scraping my address book), weechat (it is good but a bit non-obvious how to configure), Teams and Skype. Edit: I forgot Google Hangouts which is very buggy and where it is almost impossible to add new contacts.

by yosito 5y ago

johnisgood 5y ago

> there's some problem with my Matrix server Yeah, but grandparents (or whoever you are trying to introduce to Matrix) are not supposed to set up and run a Matrix server. If you meant that as an end-user you are having issues with the server you are on, perhaps you should use a different one. I have been using Element for quite a while now with matrix.org as my server, and I did not have any problems with the server I am on. The client is indeed buggy a bit[1]. Some bugs have been fixed since then though. If you run into bugs, report them please. [1] There are many clients now for Android alone, for example, from F-Droid. Perhaps they are less buggier. I do not know.

yosito 5y ago
It's not that I don't know how to solve the problems I face, it's that using Matrix requires more problem solving and has more friction, and that's one big reason why it's not the most popular choice.
- johnisgood 5y ago
  Like I said: not necessarily. I did not have any issues with it for a very long time. I did no problem solving. It is achievable in most cases. Stick to well-known clients and servers. Again, there may be bugs. They will get fixed. It happens all the time with any software. Element is maturing. It is really easy to just download and use without any problems.
- jeltz 5y ago
  No it does not. I just created an account at matrix.org and it worked fine. Does their client have bugs? Yes, but most chat clients have bugs. The only chat clients which have given me extra headache are WhatsApp (trying to get their web client to work and tryibg to stop them from scraping my address book), weechat (it is good but a bit non-obvious how to configure), Teams and Skype. Edit: I forgot Google Hangouts which is very buggy and where it is almost impossible to add new contacts.