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My prediction is that e-mail will still be around in 10 years, and Matrix will be mostly abandoned, because e-mail is mostly centered around protocols, whereas

My prediction is that e-mail will still be around in 10 years, and Matrix will be mostly abandoned, because e-mail is mostly centered around protocols, whereas Matrix is mostly centered around specific libraries and clients (in my opinion). You can already see Matrix crumble under its own complexity, in a few years they will have added so much functionality that it will become impossible for anyone but Element to provide fully-featured client software. IMAP & POP3, by comparison, are so simple and haven't changed in decades, which is why they are so useful.

lucideer 4y ago
My hope is that they're both around (& actively developed & used) in 10 years, but yes: email is much less likely to die than Matrix.
- ThePhysicist 4y ago
  My prediction is that with further advances in networking, devices will be permanently online and asynchronous communication will become less relevant (because you can always directly reach your peer), so all these fancy E2EE crypto protocols will be replaced with TLS or a similar protocol.
- Arathorn 4y ago
  I’m not sure you could kill Matrix now even if you wanted to? Heck, given people still run gopher & WAIS & fidonet servers today, so even if everyone runs away from Matrix, it’ll still keep burbling away somewhere :)
  - ThePhysicist 4y ago
    Certainly not kill it, I just don't think it will be nearly as ubiquitous as e-mail.
mxuribe 4y ago
> ...e-mail is mostly centered around protocols, whereas Matrix is mostly centered around specific libraries and clients (in my opinion)... I disagree on this, but that's ok that we differ in opinion. Also, i would disagree about the crumbling of matrix - either in the protocol sense or app/client or even implementation sense. Could some areas like clients, UX, etc. improve? Sure, of course! Evolution of software need not end if there's room to improve. I'm an admitted fanboy of matrix, but even i know that its not perfect and i hope for continued improvement of matrix. As great as email has been for decades - warts and all - i simply have been expecting (hoping?) for something else by now. It need not be matrix - though again, i'm a fan - but i just meant i hope for open, decentralized mechanism, protocols that serve the world, and become as solid and de facto as email has been (again warts and all). In 10 years, i also beleieve email will still be around...Now, whether it will be considered as standard and universally-accepted as a means for communications, we'll see i guess.

lucideer 4y ago

My hope is that they're both around (& actively developed & used) in 10 years, but yes: email is much less likely to die than Matrix.

ThePhysicist 4y ago
My prediction is that with further advances in networking, devices will be permanently online and asynchronous communication will become less relevant (because you can always directly reach your peer), so all these fancy E2EE crypto protocols will be replaced with TLS or a similar protocol.
Arathorn 4y ago
I’m not sure you could kill Matrix now even if you wanted to? Heck, given people still run gopher & WAIS & fidonet servers today, so even if everyone runs away from Matrix, it’ll still keep burbling away somewhere :)
- ThePhysicist 4y ago
  Certainly not kill it, I just don't think it will be nearly as ubiquitous as e-mail.

mxuribe 4y ago

> ...e-mail is mostly centered around protocols, whereas Matrix is mostly centered around specific libraries and clients (in my opinion)... I disagree on this, but that's ok that we differ in opinion. Also, i would disagree about the crumbling of matrix - either in the protocol sense or app/client or even implementation sense. Could some areas like clients, UX, etc. improve? Sure, of course! Evolution of software need not end if there's room to improve. I'm an admitted fanboy of matrix, but even i know that its not perfect and i hope for continued improvement of matrix. As great as email has been for decades - warts and all - i simply have been expecting (hoping?) for something else by now. It need not be matrix - though again, i'm a fan - but i just meant i hope for open, decentralized mechanism, protocols that serve the world, and become as solid and de facto as email has been (again warts and all). In 10 years, i also beleieve email will still be around...Now, whether it will be considered as standard and universally-accepted as a means for communications, we'll see i guess.