rglullis

Hey, if I manage to bring you to Matrix and you come out happier for it, then I'd say that we all won. :)

Re: federation. I've setup my matrix server with nginx as proxy so I won't be able to just point you to my configuration, but I can tell you that https://federationtester.matrix.org is of great help to show you what is missing.

I do need to look into how to setup matrix with traefik through, so if you want some help me you can send me a DM with your domain and we can work through the issues.

My main point is that all your arguments can feel perfectly reasonable, but they don't seem especially virtuous. Yes, change has a cost and is not easy. But the alternative is simply letting these huge corporations in control. We can do better than that. We can simply start out by refusing to join the larger networks. We can be part of the intolerant minority that ends up setting the course.

if its biggest (maybe only) selling point is privacy and security then I really don’t think most users will move.

No, that is not the main selling point. The selling point is control. Signal may be "private" and "secure", but requires you to trust their implementation and keeps them in control of crucial infrastructure. Matrix (or other open protocols like XMPP) give people full freedom to control how their communications works: it can be a professional hosting company, or it can an enthusiast running in their basement, or it could even be a public service offered by a local government, or it can be an university running their own servers for all students and faculty.

I would love something like Matrix to “win” if it is as good as you say it is,

It will win, at least in the same sense as Linux has "won" the operating system wars. Even if we don't get everyone running Element on their phones, we already have a directive in the EU that will force all major messengers to be able to interoperate, which will lead at least to the larger players to create some set of common functionality that will be supported by the basic phones, and there is a good chance that this will end up being powered by Matrix. There is also the fact that large sectors of the German and French Governments are investing and deploying a lot of their communication systems based on Matrix. Lastly, we can not ignore the fact that even if it's not super famous, there are already an estimated number of 60 million active accounts on Matrix.

Apologies in advance for my coming rant. I don't mean it as a personal attack, but I've been this type of discussion so many times that it gets a bit repetitive and I think most people don't get all the different forces at play here, so perhaps if I write something a bit nastier than the usual self it won't fall flat into deaf ears.

/beginrant

Your whole response can be summarized at best as "network effects are hard. Let's go shopping" and at worst as "Let me use other people's apathy and laziness to couch my own and keep the status quo".

Instead of excusing yourself on "why should I be using Matrix if others don't do it", let's play a little elimination game and ask yourself why you should be using any of the other alternatives:

• WhatsApp? No, it has e2ee but Facebook still has access to your meta-data (usage patterns, call history, list of contacts, even location tracing) and it can derive all the data mining they need. E.g, they can have a good guess at potential health issues just by recording that you call/texted the number of a medical office.

• iMessage? Closed to Apple's ecosystem, vendor lock-in.

• Discord? Closed source, proprietary protocol, vendor lock-in.

• Signal? Slightly better, but centralized and with questionable funding ties.

• Telegram? Closed source (on server side), questionable cryptography, ties with Russian oligarch.

Also notice how none of these alternatives "comes with their phone", so the point about "non-technical people not interested in switching" is moot. They had to learn how to use WhatsApp and Discord once, they can learn how to use Matrix as well.

if they don’t at least leverage the E2EE supported by those services’ native apps, it negates pretty much all benefits for me.

You can run your own Matrix homeserver, along with whatever bridges you decide to set up. You don't have to trust anyone, it's just an option given to you.

any protocol will have to have friction-free sign up and usage.

First, there is no such thing as "friction-free". There is always some friction. One of the things that turned me off WhatsApp (and Signal) is the fact that it requires a phone number. The fact that (most) people happened to have overcome some initial obstacle doesn't mean it was never there.

Second, it seems that no matter what FOSS developers do, there is always yet-another obstacle put by users who simply do not want to be bothered with change, even when what is asked of them is well within their range of actionable work.

Since I don’t see a path for it pulling in non tech enthusiasts (...) I don’t see myself adopting another platform for chat.

How about you take the first step and try for yourself to see what are the real challenges for "non-tech" people? I'm out of WhatsApp and got my parents (both getting closer to their 70s) to use Element. UX annoyances do exist, but nothing that stops them from using properly. Why can't you, e.g, get your circle of friends in one Discord server and try it out collectively to see how it goes? It's not that hard.

Matrix is well past the "only suitable for early-adopters" phase. What it needs now is for individuals and companies to just get their heads out of the sand and put just a little bit of effort into it.

/endrant

You are indeed misunderstanding some of the points about it:

You have to register for a home server, which essentially means trusting the individual(s) running that home server not to abuse that privilege.

Communication that happens exclusively via Matrix are always end-to-end encrypted. No one will have access to it. The only point where e2ee is "broken" is when/if you are using any of the bridges to any of the protocols where the messages are in clear text. If you are worried about having your messages read by a third-party, then you wouldn't be using the insecure protocol in the first place, right?

Not only that, but your data is then replicated on other servers where the other participants in your conversations are registered.

Not true. Data that goes to the other servers is always encrypted and only the intended recipients can read it. No trust required.

The (seemingly) most popular, Element, appears to collect a crap-ton of personal information - including user content!

Technically speaking, every client "collects user content", no? The question is what the application does with it. The code is open source and I'm yet to hear anyone claiming bad practices or security flaws in the client.

Alternative to discord: your best bet will be to find a matrix server at https://servers.joinmatrix.org. Element is the most mature client for all platforms.

For Facebook, any of the ActivityPub alternatives like Mastodon, Pleroma, GoToSocial... Too many choices for clients and instances, but if you are looking for a professional provider and care more about a "generic" instance that is well-maintained (or want to run your own), you can try communick. Disclosure, it's my own project and I've been running it for some years now.

I am asking if you know of any project of lasting value that was successful by giving total freedom to its contributors.

That's not what I mean.

I mean that Ramus Lerdorf (creator of PHP) by his own account was never worried about big architectural thinking or consistent design, and it shows. PHP3 is just a pile of functionality thrown together, and it wasn't until PHP 4 or 5 (depending on who you ask) that things started to get cleaned up.

Can you tell me any successful open source project where the lead developers take a "merge everything with little fuss over quality, principle and overall design" approach?

Maybe PHP? When you think of PHP, do you think "that's a project I'd like to work on"?

how AI would enhance web browsing

I'm not a fan of calling these LLM things "AI", but there are tons of things where this could make sense to help in decision-making. Example scenarios:

• I want to plan a vacation but I don't have a exact plan or date. Instead of aimless browsing around or giving my data to a bunch of travel sites that will bombard me with "deals", I can set up an "AI agent" that will check the current prices, weather conditions and etc to find spontaneous trips.
• I want to make a "DIY" project and some of the components are fixed by the design, but others can vary. An AI can give me suggestions for variations and find me the best prices for the materials required.
• If I am looking at a product on Amazon, an AI can summarize the reviews in a way that I care about.
• I can find a recipe that a like and ask an AI to make a vegan/gluten-free/kosher version of it

etc, etc, etc...

I would totally support a campaign that eatablished instances to close registrations if they had more than 5% of the total users in the fediverse, and only open again when/if went below 3%. This would ensure that no instance dominated the landscape and it would prevent abuse from the admins in large instances.

Yeah, one thing I need to do is to make sure that the people who are coming in for free are not just lurking around. They are not heavy consumers of the service, but the idea is that the first ones should come to help bootstrap the instance content.

As for what you are doing for your minecraft server, I think it is quite reasonable if you treat it as a hobby. You are not doing it expecting compensation, so at least you should be doing it in a way that you can be healthy and sustainable.

If you charge from the early adopters, you will have a disincentive to get them to join and you'll never be able to bootstrap the network.

I am actually trying the opposite with my instance, the first 250 members will have free access, after that access will require a subscription of $8/year.