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XMPP is only kind of decentralized. As far as any individual user is concerned, loss of the server(Which their identity is tied to) would be a hassle. Just lik

XMPP is only kind of decentralized. As far as any individual user is concerned, loss of the server(Which their identity is tied to) would be a hassle. Just like email. SMTP got really entrenched really early. It's what gmail uses. They can't really do a proprietary mail protocol, SMTP was around way before them and nobody wanted to switch. Instant messaging for the masses was proprietary from the start, as far as I can tell. There was IRC, but it seems like by the time the internet was everywhere, people were already on AOL and ICQ and a bazillion other proprietary ones offering various extras and integrations. None of them seem that interested in open protocols.

bombcar 4y ago
SMTP was a way for email systems to communicate - and so things like CompuServe jumped on the bandwagon early. Universities and others using mainly UUCP also migrated because of the benefits. There wasn't really a huge benefit for the big instant messaging players to integrate, and the dirty secret is cross-platform "instant" messaging has always existed - it's SMTP! Many people still use email as a form of a chat tool. XMPP also suffers from the "oh shit security might be important" that SMTP originally didn't deal with (it's horribly insecure by modern standards) which greatly increased the complexity.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > SMTP originally didn't deal with More so, absence of security is what allowed SMTP to proliferate.