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The question then, is what kind of protocol(s) should be used. SMS is about as close as exists for open instant messaging, but it requires a phone number IRC

The question then, is what kind of protocol(s) should be used. SMS is about as close as exists for open instant messaging, but it requires a phone number IRC seems to have inspired Discord and Slack, with the closed variants improving on features and discoverability. As far as I know, XMPP doesn't really have a cross-server ability like SMS and IRC, though.

jon-wood 3y ago
XMPP absolutely has cross server support, it was designed from the ground up to do so. You can run your own server and advertise it via DNS, which will then allow other servers to communicate back and forth with users on your server.
BirAdam 3y ago
SMS is essentially just email. The phone number just ends up being part of the email address: 0123456789@att.net and whatnot. Edit: there was also a time when AIM could send and receive SMS due to this structure, and at one point it was trivial to set up a script to email your phone number as SMS for alerts and such. This became more complicated as SMS providers started to require a lot of the same stuff as email providers to cut down on spam.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  It’s really not. Lots of mobile providers did indeed run email to SMS bridges back in the day, but those were taking the body of the email (or sometimes just the subject) and converting it into an SMS for delivery.
Hakashiro 3y ago
It is more than a protocol. It's an experience. E-mail is totally intercompatible, but the experience for anything apart from "the equivalent of letters" is simply horrendous. Delta Chat tries to make e-mail more like a chat app, but it isn't perfect, because e-mail wasn't designed to be a chat application. XMPP has other massive usability flaws. So does IRC, Matrix, and others.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  None of Matrix’s typical usability problems are the protocol’s fault - they are the clients’ fault. The fact is that on the Matrix side we invested much more time on the protocol, spec process and even server implementations in the early days. Meanwhile the clients Element built to bootstrap the protocol have been stuck paying off huge amounts of product debt, and are finally at the point now of surpassing mainstream apps - eg https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/ https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/ - but it took years longer than it should have to get there. Again, it’s not the protocol’s fault though, other than the extent to which building a protocol draws energy from building killer apps.

jon-wood 3y ago

XMPP absolutely has cross server support, it was designed from the ground up to do so. You can run your own server and advertise it via DNS, which will then allow other servers to communicate back and forth with users on your server.

BirAdam 3y ago

SMS is essentially just email. The phone number just ends up being part of the email address: 0123456789@att.net and whatnot. Edit: there was also a time when AIM could send and receive SMS due to this structure, and at one point it was trivial to set up a script to email your phone number as SMS for alerts and such. This became more complicated as SMS providers started to require a lot of the same stuff as email providers to cut down on spam.

jon-wood 3y ago
It’s really not. Lots of mobile providers did indeed run email to SMS bridges back in the day, but those were taking the body of the email (or sometimes just the subject) and converting it into an SMS for delivery.

Hakashiro 3y ago

It is more than a protocol. It's an experience. E-mail is totally intercompatible, but the experience for anything apart from "the equivalent of letters" is simply horrendous. Delta Chat tries to make e-mail more like a chat app, but it isn't perfect, because e-mail wasn't designed to be a chat application. XMPP has other massive usability flaws. So does IRC, Matrix, and others.

Arathorn 3y ago
None of Matrix’s typical usability problems are the protocol’s fault - they are the clients’ fault. The fact is that on the Matrix side we invested much more time on the protocol, spec process and even server implementations in the early days. Meanwhile the clients Element built to bootstrap the protocol have been stuck paying off huge amounts of product debt, and are finally at the point now of surpassing mainstream apps - eg https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/ https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/ - but it took years longer than it should have to get there. Again, it’s not the protocol’s fault though, other than the extent to which building a protocol draws energy from building killer apps.