6 ms·

A single guy produced in a single year something more private and with a UI that doesn't suck: SimpleX. This Matrix case in my opinion is either lack of talent

A single guy produced in a single year something more private and with a UI that doesn't suck: SimpleX. This Matrix case in my opinion is either lack of talent or intentional. One should never discard the second option when considering how governments tend to interfer in such tools and Matrix is quite sus on the funding side. In 5 years we've seen little to no remarkable progress. I'm not recommending this platform any further to anyone, other options have delivered what this one had been promissing for years. Time to move on.

tourmalinetaco 2y ago
Absolutely intentional. Various members of the Element community had been fighting tooth and nail for better emote support, and many implementations have been developed and tested, and even for the ones that followed the Matrix-backed MSCs and passed the necessary tests every single one was outright denied and more recently told that Element makes major money off of government interests so why listen to the desires of the people, even if they do all the work necessary for free anyway?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  we’ve had to prioritise keeping the lights on by building stuff we can sell rather than merging custom emoji PRs. it’s a “please put on your own mask before helping others” kind-of thing. thanks for understanding…
  - nunobrito 2y ago
    Enough said when the priority is to please governments that throw money to you rather than the open source community submitting new features. As I've said before: won't be using your platform nor recommend it.
  - tourmalinetaco 2y ago
    There is zero logical reason you cannot do both, especially as a lab (which are all minimal value adds and have been broken for years). This has been open for 8 years. And there have been many people willing to implement it for free, who have gone out of their way to work around the painful busywork involved, where they would selflessly rework it as needed to fit within the MSC once the SCT fully approved one. Are you telling me that with the multi-millions of dollars you get from law enforcement, you cannot delegate a manager to, as a minor part time duty, oversee the free work given to you? Especially when the various Element apps have been in an effective maintenance mode for at minimum the last year? This sounds like either Element is run very poorly and despite the massive funds rolling in can barely maintain themselves, or there is a distinct distain for external work that does not generate immediate revenue for the company. Trust me, I understand full well what you’re saying. You’re maximizing profits with no care for the “freeloaders”. That’s fine, you can do that, but don’t act like I have to care.
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      > Are you telling me that with the multi-millions of dollars you get from law enforcement, you cannot delegate a manager to, as a minor part time duty, oversee the free work given to you? Correct. We are not profitable, and frantically trying to get sustainable by focusing on things which generate money so we can keep paying our salaries, rather than taking on maintenance of new “free” contributed features when we’re still focused on the core. The reason we don’t have more $ is because we gave away everything as Apache licensed FOSS, and turned out most people were happy to use that gratis rather than paying for anything. The most likely manager to oversee custom emoji was laid off last year due to lack of $. Fwiw, we make almost no money from law enforcement. > there is a distinct distain for external work that does not generate immediate revenue for the company. No. We really appreciate the various custom emoji PRs, and I personally feel awful they are stuck. At this point the most likely way to get them merged is if i do so myself. > You’re maximizing profits with no care for the “freeloaders”. No. We are not profitable. We are trying to stop losing money, so we might actually be sustainable.
      - grues-dinner 2y ago
        If you don't mind my asking, what are the features that you're working on to become profitable? I know custom emojis sound dumb, but they are basically the differentiation factor for how Discord gets their billions. People almost literally pay hundreds of dollars for Nitro just to get their emojis/reactions. Other than bigger uploads, that's all the lower Nitro tier does. Some people just laugh in my digital face when I suggest Matrix, because they will never, ever, countenance losing their emojis. I don't know why they care that much, but they absolutely do. It feels a bit like trying to sell a car without Bluetooth. You might think it's a trivial frill and a distraction from the best engine ever, but the interest will be lukewarm at the very best. I bought a car without Bluetooth but then I fitted my own adapter. Even that isn't possible here.
        Arathorn 2y ago
        So we do care about custom emoji, and they are obviously critical for folks looking for an encrypted Discord alternative. However, right now we're not focusing on building an encrypted Discord alternative but instead a self-hosted WhatsApp (or Teams) replacement for governments: https://element.io/sectors https://element.io/sectors, on the basis that they are the ones paying. Sure, we could have gone after Discord ~5 years ago and launched our own Nitro equivalent, and perhaps we should have. But instead we observed that governments REALLY want to run their own encrypted interoperable comms systems, and we thought that having Matrix used as the backbone for public sector communication would be a good way to prove and fund it sustainably. Ideally we could then use the public sector as a launchpad into other areas - a bit like how email & the web and even the internet spread from DARPA / NSFNet / academic etc to the rest of the world. After all, what better endorsement for Matrix than someone like NATO using it for comms? As a result, custom emoji are stuck in the middle of the todo list still. Some of the other features that we've worked on instead have been: * Making encryption stable. As hilarious as https://www.reddit.com/r/elementchat/comments/1evz3kk/unable_to_decrypt_message/ https://www.reddit.com/r/elementchat/comments/1evz3kk/unable... is. * Make encryption secure - i.e. migrating from the old C/C++ libolm implementation to the rust vodozemac implementation. * Instant login/sync/launch - i.e. an entirely new sync mechanism. * Rather than developing 4 different client stacks (js-sdk, ios-sdk, android-sdk and rust-sdk), converge on a single one: matrix-rust-sdk, and make it excellent. * Rework the core UX to make encryption invisible (rather than full of confusing unactionable warnings and verification nags etc). * Native Matrix-encrypted scalable voip/video calling. * Migrating to OpenID Connect for auth, so getting 2FA/MFA etc * Public sector enterprise features: antivirus, regulatory compliance, secure border gateways, cross-domain gateways, active directory sync, SCIM sync, kubernetes operators, etc. etc. Now, the plan is to use the govtech business to get back to funding mainstream Matrix uptake. But first we need to be able to fund ourselves to work on it.
my2cents372652 2y ago
As someone who's (sadly) moving away from matrix due to the state of clients and running out of patience for Element X (it's been... What? Two years?) I have to say SimpleX and/or XMPP are where I am looking.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  we literally released Element X last week… https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-server-suite-are-ready/ https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-... :/
- eredengrin 2y ago
  In spite of my earlier comment, I do think it is worthwhile to stick around a little longer to see how it goes. As Arathorn mentioned, the latest ElementX release just came out and they are saying it is production ready. I got the update yesterday (I was using it in beta before) and I did notice some of my rooms syncing faster in the ui. Once SchildiNext rebases I am hoping it will be something I could finally recommend to people, at least if voice/video aren't needed. If voice/video is a requirement for you, then I could totally understand going to discord, although I am hoping that with the native matrix calls it could change that once the ux is equivalent.
- nunobrito 2y ago
  SimpleX is OK as direct replacement to Telegram, very similar except you are not able to write the comfy bots (yet) over there. On the plus side, no need to sign up with a telephone number either. If you are willing to try out new things other than XMPP, I'd recommend looking at the NOSTR protocol and more specifically at the 0xchat client. They provide private message with E2EE but the biggest advantage IMHO is that you get connected to a huge variety of other services and people using the same protocol. I find that better than building the connections on what are essentially closed gardens or, at best, isolated islands. Over there exist hundreds of servers (relays) run by volunteers where new features are proposed by users and actually implemented (success or failure depends truly on themselves). Other good features being delivered on NOSTR are for example the anonymous IPFS (blossom files) where you can host complete static sites across the relays. There is truly plenty to discover there and to build, feels like the 90s and has been fun.

tourmalinetaco 2y ago

Absolutely intentional. Various members of the Element community had been fighting tooth and nail for better emote support, and many implementations have been developed and tested, and even for the ones that followed the Matrix-backed MSCs and passed the necessary tests every single one was outright denied and more recently told that Element makes major money off of government interests so why listen to the desires of the people, even if they do all the work necessary for free anyway?

Arathorn 2y ago
we’ve had to prioritise keeping the lights on by building stuff we can sell rather than merging custom emoji PRs. it’s a “please put on your own mask before helping others” kind-of thing. thanks for understanding…
- nunobrito 2y ago
  Enough said when the priority is to please governments that throw money to you rather than the open source community submitting new features. As I've said before: won't be using your platform nor recommend it.
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  There is zero logical reason you cannot do both, especially as a lab (which are all minimal value adds and have been broken for years). This has been open for 8 years. And there have been many people willing to implement it for free, who have gone out of their way to work around the painful busywork involved, where they would selflessly rework it as needed to fit within the MSC once the SCT fully approved one. Are you telling me that with the multi-millions of dollars you get from law enforcement, you cannot delegate a manager to, as a minor part time duty, oversee the free work given to you? Especially when the various Element apps have been in an effective maintenance mode for at minimum the last year? This sounds like either Element is run very poorly and despite the massive funds rolling in can barely maintain themselves, or there is a distinct distain for external work that does not generate immediate revenue for the company. Trust me, I understand full well what you’re saying. You’re maximizing profits with no care for the “freeloaders”. That’s fine, you can do that, but don’t act like I have to care.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    > Are you telling me that with the multi-millions of dollars you get from law enforcement, you cannot delegate a manager to, as a minor part time duty, oversee the free work given to you? Correct. We are not profitable, and frantically trying to get sustainable by focusing on things which generate money so we can keep paying our salaries, rather than taking on maintenance of new “free” contributed features when we’re still focused on the core. The reason we don’t have more $ is because we gave away everything as Apache licensed FOSS, and turned out most people were happy to use that gratis rather than paying for anything. The most likely manager to oversee custom emoji was laid off last year due to lack of $. Fwiw, we make almost no money from law enforcement. > there is a distinct distain for external work that does not generate immediate revenue for the company. No. We really appreciate the various custom emoji PRs, and I personally feel awful they are stuck. At this point the most likely way to get them merged is if i do so myself. > You’re maximizing profits with no care for the “freeloaders”. No. We are not profitable. We are trying to stop losing money, so we might actually be sustainable.
    - grues-dinner 2y ago
      If you don't mind my asking, what are the features that you're working on to become profitable? I know custom emojis sound dumb, but they are basically the differentiation factor for how Discord gets their billions. People almost literally pay hundreds of dollars for Nitro just to get their emojis/reactions. Other than bigger uploads, that's all the lower Nitro tier does. Some people just laugh in my digital face when I suggest Matrix, because they will never, ever, countenance losing their emojis. I don't know why they care that much, but they absolutely do. It feels a bit like trying to sell a car without Bluetooth. You might think it's a trivial frill and a distraction from the best engine ever, but the interest will be lukewarm at the very best. I bought a car without Bluetooth but then I fitted my own adapter. Even that isn't possible here.
      - Arathorn 2y ago
        So we do care about custom emoji, and they are obviously critical for folks looking for an encrypted Discord alternative. However, right now we're not focusing on building an encrypted Discord alternative but instead a self-hosted WhatsApp (or Teams) replacement for governments: https://element.io/sectors https://element.io/sectors, on the basis that they are the ones paying. Sure, we could have gone after Discord ~5 years ago and launched our own Nitro equivalent, and perhaps we should have. But instead we observed that governments REALLY want to run their own encrypted interoperable comms systems, and we thought that having Matrix used as the backbone for public sector communication would be a good way to prove and fund it sustainably. Ideally we could then use the public sector as a launchpad into other areas - a bit like how email & the web and even the internet spread from DARPA / NSFNet / academic etc to the rest of the world. After all, what better endorsement for Matrix than someone like NATO using it for comms? As a result, custom emoji are stuck in the middle of the todo list still. Some of the other features that we've worked on instead have been: * Making encryption stable. As hilarious as https://www.reddit.com/r/elementchat/comments/1evz3kk/unable_to_decrypt_message/ https://www.reddit.com/r/elementchat/comments/1evz3kk/unable... is. * Make encryption secure - i.e. migrating from the old C/C++ libolm implementation to the rust vodozemac implementation. * Instant login/sync/launch - i.e. an entirely new sync mechanism. * Rather than developing 4 different client stacks (js-sdk, ios-sdk, android-sdk and rust-sdk), converge on a single one: matrix-rust-sdk, and make it excellent. * Rework the core UX to make encryption invisible (rather than full of confusing unactionable warnings and verification nags etc). * Native Matrix-encrypted scalable voip/video calling. * Migrating to OpenID Connect for auth, so getting 2FA/MFA etc * Public sector enterprise features: antivirus, regulatory compliance, secure border gateways, cross-domain gateways, active directory sync, SCIM sync, kubernetes operators, etc. etc. Now, the plan is to use the govtech business to get back to funding mainstream Matrix uptake. But first we need to be able to fund ourselves to work on it.

my2cents372652 2y ago

As someone who's (sadly) moving away from matrix due to the state of clients and running out of patience for Element X (it's been... What? Two years?) I have to say SimpleX and/or XMPP are where I am looking.

Arathorn 2y ago
we literally released Element X last week… https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-server-suite-are-ready/ https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-... :/
eredengrin 2y ago
In spite of my earlier comment, I do think it is worthwhile to stick around a little longer to see how it goes. As Arathorn mentioned, the latest ElementX release just came out and they are saying it is production ready. I got the update yesterday (I was using it in beta before) and I did notice some of my rooms syncing faster in the ui. Once SchildiNext rebases I am hoping it will be something I could finally recommend to people, at least if voice/video aren't needed. If voice/video is a requirement for you, then I could totally understand going to discord, although I am hoping that with the native matrix calls it could change that once the ux is equivalent.
nunobrito 2y ago
SimpleX is OK as direct replacement to Telegram, very similar except you are not able to write the comfy bots (yet) over there. On the plus side, no need to sign up with a telephone number either. If you are willing to try out new things other than XMPP, I'd recommend looking at the NOSTR protocol and more specifically at the 0xchat client. They provide private message with E2EE but the biggest advantage IMHO is that you get connected to a huge variety of other services and people using the same protocol. I find that better than building the connections on what are essentially closed gardens or, at best, isolated islands. Over there exist hundreds of servers (relays) run by volunteers where new features are proposed by users and actually implemented (success or failure depends truly on themselves). Other good features being delivered on NOSTR are for example the anonymous IPFS (blossom files) where you can host complete static sites across the relays. There is truly plenty to discover there and to build, feels like the 90s and has been fun.