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> Admittedly, I haven't used IRC much and I know the UI/UX isn't the best, I mean, you seem to understand what's wrong. IRC is meaningfully worse to use than S

> Admittedly, I haven't used IRC much and I know the UI/UX isn't the best, I mean, you seem to understand what's wrong. IRC is meaningfully worse to use than Slack/Discord. So people use stuff that's nicer to use. > but that could probably be fixed pretty easily and tacked on to the existing messaging infrastructure? If it were easy, it would have already been done. "The UX isn't great" isn't a recent discovery, it's something that's been known for a very long time. I regularly use two messaging platforms: Discord, and Element. The former is proprietary and the latter is open. Element is meaningfully worse to actually use. And it's still the best Matrix client I personally have used.

Arathorn 2y ago
> Element is meaningfully worse to actually use. And it's still the best Matrix client I personally have used. fwiw we’ve spent the last few years fixing this, starting with mobile, and Element X is the result: https://element.io/labs/element-x https://element.io/labs/element-x. it’s more of a whatsapp/imessage/signal replacement rather than a discord replacement right now, but i really hope we fixed the UX this time. (edit: that said, at this point i’m worried that even if we made Element better than Discord, it would still have its old reputation to shake off, and I’m blanking on projects who have managed that. just like even if someone built a desktop linux env which outperformed macOS, it might have an uphill struggle for adoption.)
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  That's great! To be honest, I was very impressed with how you all handled the criticism of the website, by the way. I don't generally use Element on mobile, but I will give Element X a try! Thanks for the pointer.
- cpach 2y ago
  TBH, I’m surprised to hear Element (X) described like this. I thought the space that Matrix was intended for was group chat, similar to IRC, Slack, Discord, Mattermost, Zulip, etc. Now you say that Element X is a replacement for WhatsApp/iMessage/Signal, which to me is a totally different kind of application. Basically, I see WhatsApp et al as a better way to send SMS (E2EE) or send vacation pics to my family (without broadcasting them on Instagram) whereas if I would want to discuss a tricky PostgreSQL issue (or whatever) I would kind of expect the project to have some kind of presence on IRC, Slack, Discord or similar. So now I’m curious about the change of course. Would be very interesting to hear the rationale for this.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    Matrix is intended for chat of any kind. The 'messenger' featureset (i.e. WhatsApp/iMessage) is basically a subset of the 'Team Collaboration' (i.e. Slack/Discord/Teams) featureset. Historically Element has tried to handle both use cases, but it spread us too thin and we didn't pull it off. So with Element X, we've very deliberately focused on the Messenger use case at first (also driven by the fact that we have more paying customers asking "i want to run my own decentralised WhatsApp/Signal alternative" than "i want to run my own encrypted Teams alternative") - and it is unrecognisably more polished and focused and usable than normal Element. To quote someone in one of the community Element X rooms a few days ago: > just downloaded element x from f-droid and wowza it just.. loads instantly? can't believe i now live in the age of element being faster than discord Once the 'messenger' use case is fully launched (aiming for "end of summer"), we'll then carefully add the team-collaboration features (spaces, threads, etc) back in - and hopefully end up with something which can be used for both.
katze77 2y ago
Yes, the fascinating thing about Matrix is that they have 30+ clients listed on their page of which none (!) implements all the features of the protocol — for instance, there is no client that supports E2E and multiple accounts. You would think instead of creating more than 30 sub-par clients it would make sense to create one that is actually good.
- tcfhgj 2y ago
  fluffychat supports both And what you think, doesn't make any sense, because Matrix is an open protocol. Its like complaining about people making millions of websites, but not actually good ones.

Arathorn 2y ago

> Element is meaningfully worse to actually use. And it's still the best Matrix client I personally have used. fwiw we’ve spent the last few years fixing this, starting with mobile, and Element X is the result: https://element.io/labs/element-x https://element.io/labs/element-x. it’s more of a whatsapp/imessage/signal replacement rather than a discord replacement right now, but i really hope we fixed the UX this time. (edit: that said, at this point i’m worried that even if we made Element better than Discord, it would still have its old reputation to shake off, and I’m blanking on projects who have managed that. just like even if someone built a desktop linux env which outperformed macOS, it might have an uphill struggle for adoption.)

steveklabnik 2y ago
That's great! To be honest, I was very impressed with how you all handled the criticism of the website, by the way. I don't generally use Element on mobile, but I will give Element X a try! Thanks for the pointer.
cpach 2y ago
TBH, I’m surprised to hear Element (X) described like this. I thought the space that Matrix was intended for was group chat, similar to IRC, Slack, Discord, Mattermost, Zulip, etc. Now you say that Element X is a replacement for WhatsApp/iMessage/Signal, which to me is a totally different kind of application. Basically, I see WhatsApp et al as a better way to send SMS (E2EE) or send vacation pics to my family (without broadcasting them on Instagram) whereas if I would want to discuss a tricky PostgreSQL issue (or whatever) I would kind of expect the project to have some kind of presence on IRC, Slack, Discord or similar. So now I’m curious about the change of course. Would be very interesting to hear the rationale for this.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Matrix is intended for chat of any kind. The 'messenger' featureset (i.e. WhatsApp/iMessage) is basically a subset of the 'Team Collaboration' (i.e. Slack/Discord/Teams) featureset. Historically Element has tried to handle both use cases, but it spread us too thin and we didn't pull it off. So with Element X, we've very deliberately focused on the Messenger use case at first (also driven by the fact that we have more paying customers asking "i want to run my own decentralised WhatsApp/Signal alternative" than "i want to run my own encrypted Teams alternative") - and it is unrecognisably more polished and focused and usable than normal Element. To quote someone in one of the community Element X rooms a few days ago: > just downloaded element x from f-droid and wowza it just.. loads instantly? can't believe i now live in the age of element being faster than discord Once the 'messenger' use case is fully launched (aiming for "end of summer"), we'll then carefully add the team-collaboration features (spaces, threads, etc) back in - and hopefully end up with something which can be used for both.

katze77 2y ago

Yes, the fascinating thing about Matrix is that they have 30+ clients listed on their page of which none (!) implements all the features of the protocol — for instance, there is no client that supports E2E and multiple accounts. You would think instead of creating more than 30 sub-par clients it would make sense to create one that is actually good.

tcfhgj 2y ago
fluffychat supports both And what you think, doesn't make any sense, because Matrix is an open protocol. Its like complaining about people making millions of websites, but not actually good ones.