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I have a group chat in Signal of 12 people. Only me, and another person, have a moderately technical understanding of what Signal provides. Besides the obvious

by alx__ 4y ago

I have a group chat in Signal of 12 people. Only me, and another person, have a moderately technical understanding of what Signal provides. Besides the obvious "secure chat". There is no path for non-tech users to start using Element/Matrix or some Fediverse thing. These are excellent concepts, but they will remain there, as nice ideas. Because they are not a quick three-step process of Download -> Setup -> Chat with Friend

SahAssar 4y ago
I'm guessing that most of those people have at least one account (on some sort of service) that uses the traditional email+password login. I don't think that adding one more thing (the server domain) to that is hard. Or they could just use the default (in basically every client it is matrix.org).
natrys 4y ago
I am not sure why you think of that for Matrix. I am the only technical person in my group who self-hosts the Matrix server. All that my friends had to do was download the client, copy/paste the instance url provided by me, and boom we were chatting.
- navigate8310 4y ago
  Copy/paste of some URL in a specific field to get started will cause at least some non-nerd friends to question the ease of use and inherit distrust. "Why am I pasting a URL given by you in this app, will you be able to track all my private conversations as well? Hell, will you be able to hack into my phone now?"
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    You must have some horribly untrustworthy friends. Or, more accurately, your friends must not find you very trustworthy if they're constantly asking these questions whenever you suggest something. A healthy dose of skepticism is warranted, but at the end of the day this whole thread is about friend groups talking to each other. This just wouldn't be a realistic line of questioning in this scenario imo.
    - olah_1 4y ago
      It would absolutely be a realistic line of questioning for friends and even family. There is terms and service, legal systems etc for corporations. There is no such thing for individual server admins. They are right to feel weird about their friend running their private chats as opposed to a company.
      - mynameisvlad 4y ago
        Extremely hard disagree. People implicitly trust friends and especially family to be generally good and not misuse their information. Far more than they would trust a random stranger or corporation, regardless of legal systems, terms of service, privacy policy, etc. They are also generally grateful that you're providing a service they can use and can handle issues coming up moreso than from others. And, of course they would, you've built up years of personal trust and relationships with them, which goes far deeper than anything professional. Source: I do this. For multiple services. For multiple people. But also, just basic common sense.
        olah_1 4y ago
        You’re simply wrong dude. The proof is all around us. People don’t want to use services run by their friends. Otherwise they would. I trust my brother with my life, but I would prefer to use Instagram DMs rather than a chat service he is running on a VPS. There is so much that can go wrong with a service like that. No offense to him, but I’d rather a company handle it where people are getting paid to do it. Generally speaking, if someone is running a service out of the goodness of their heart, they are doing it as a hobby. And you have to wonder why it is so fun to them? They enjoy handling peoples’ chats? Seems a lil weird. I love my brother, but just seems a little off. People do think like this.
        mynameisvlad 4y ago
        Agree to disagree, but your conclusions and what you consider "weird" are just absurd. The reason people don't use their friends' services is because the supply doesn't exist, not because there's no demand. And /r/homelab (and the numerous spinoffs) would highly disagree with you; the fact that they exist is what you would call "the proof" which is "all around us".
- Macha 4y ago
  Hell, the non-technical end user can just leave the client at the default matrix.org homeserver if they want to have the same setup experience
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  Even without you providing an instance URL, most clients give a drop-down list of servers with open registration when you sign up. For some reason, these days, that's seen as an impossible barrier to entry.
jlkuester7 4y ago
Literally, my Grandma uses Mastodon! It is not hard! Many of us are old enough to remember a time (before gmail became the de-facto standard) when we had to hand-hold non-technical friends and family members through the process of choosing an email provider. Choosing a Mastodon/Matrix server is pretty much the same thing. Once you have an account on the server, there is pretty much nothing no downsides even for non-technical users...
johnisgood 4y ago
Element/Matrix is literally "Download -> Setup -> Chat with Friend". I know, because I invited many non-technical people successfully and without any issues. OK, there was an issue back in the days when verification was much shittier, but it has been resolved by now.

by alx__ 4y ago

SahAssar 4y ago

I'm guessing that most of those people have at least one account (on some sort of service) that uses the traditional email+password login. I don't think that adding one more thing (the server domain) to that is hard. Or they could just use the default (in basically every client it is matrix.org).

natrys 4y ago

I am not sure why you think of that for Matrix. I am the only technical person in my group who self-hosts the Matrix server. All that my friends had to do was download the client, copy/paste the instance url provided by me, and boom we were chatting.

navigate8310 4y ago
Copy/paste of some URL in a specific field to get started will cause at least some non-nerd friends to question the ease of use and inherit distrust. "Why am I pasting a URL given by you in this app, will you be able to track all my private conversations as well? Hell, will you be able to hack into my phone now?"
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  You must have some horribly untrustworthy friends. Or, more accurately, your friends must not find you very trustworthy if they're constantly asking these questions whenever you suggest something. A healthy dose of skepticism is warranted, but at the end of the day this whole thread is about friend groups talking to each other. This just wouldn't be a realistic line of questioning in this scenario imo.
  - olah_1 4y ago
    It would absolutely be a realistic line of questioning for friends and even family. There is terms and service, legal systems etc for corporations. There is no such thing for individual server admins. They are right to feel weird about their friend running their private chats as opposed to a company.
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      Extremely hard disagree. People implicitly trust friends and especially family to be generally good and not misuse their information. Far more than they would trust a random stranger or corporation, regardless of legal systems, terms of service, privacy policy, etc. They are also generally grateful that you're providing a service they can use and can handle issues coming up moreso than from others. And, of course they would, you've built up years of personal trust and relationships with them, which goes far deeper than anything professional. Source: I do this. For multiple services. For multiple people. But also, just basic common sense.
      - olah_1 4y ago
        You’re simply wrong dude. The proof is all around us. People don’t want to use services run by their friends. Otherwise they would. I trust my brother with my life, but I would prefer to use Instagram DMs rather than a chat service he is running on a VPS. There is so much that can go wrong with a service like that. No offense to him, but I’d rather a company handle it where people are getting paid to do it. Generally speaking, if someone is running a service out of the goodness of their heart, they are doing it as a hobby. And you have to wonder why it is so fun to them? They enjoy handling peoples’ chats? Seems a lil weird. I love my brother, but just seems a little off. People do think like this.
        mynameisvlad 4y ago
        Agree to disagree, but your conclusions and what you consider "weird" are just absurd. The reason people don't use their friends' services is because the supply doesn't exist, not because there's no demand. And /r/homelab (and the numerous spinoffs) would highly disagree with you; the fact that they exist is what you would call "the proof" which is "all around us".
Macha 4y ago
Hell, the non-technical end user can just leave the client at the default matrix.org homeserver if they want to have the same setup experience
NoGravitas 4y ago
Even without you providing an instance URL, most clients give a drop-down list of servers with open registration when you sign up. For some reason, these days, that's seen as an impossible barrier to entry.

jlkuester7 4y ago

Literally, my Grandma uses Mastodon! It is not hard! Many of us are old enough to remember a time (before gmail became the de-facto standard) when we had to hand-hold non-technical friends and family members through the process of choosing an email provider. Choosing a Mastodon/Matrix server is pretty much the same thing. Once you have an account on the server, there is pretty much nothing no downsides even for non-technical users...

johnisgood 4y ago

Element/Matrix is literally "Download -> Setup -> Chat with Friend". I know, because I invited many non-technical people successfully and without any issues. OK, there was an issue back in the days when verification was much shittier, but it has been resolved by now.