I wouldn't go so far as to say the ux utterly sucks but it's certainly not something I've been able to recommend to most family and friends yet (I can't be too hard on matrix since I have to use Teams sometimes which is simply worse in pretty much every category I can think of, which is sad since the microsoft product teams replaced, skype for business, was itself light years behind teams).

It's a bit unfortunate to see matrix still not there yet, but on the other hand I'm still hopeful for the future. I think ElementX is the result of realizing that an excellent chat experience is what is needed. I also think the matrix foundation governing board elections [0] show that the community agrees that a rock solid chat experience is what is needed. At least for the individual members category, none of the candidates who were elected had a platform statement advocating for more work on the experimental matrix features. Sumner (who I think had the highest support by a good margin, although I can't find the exact numbers right now) specifically stated that experimental matrix features should not receive further investment until the baseline features are acceptable.

I realize that getting funding is a beast of its own and that is probably why some of the experimental things took focus at times so I can't fault that, but I really do want matrix to be something I can eventually recommend to all my family and friends instead of whatsapp or discord. I think it is slowly heading that way..

[0] https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/election-results/

[1] https://matrix.org/foundation/governing-board-elections/#nom...

>no securitygasm cryptography

I very much disagree. E2EE with FOSS and decentralization is THE reason to use it over discord or other "more simple and fun" messanger.

> nobody is buying drugs on matrix. this isn’t signal or whatsapp, this is discord for tech dorks.

Yes they are, and they have since the beginning.

People don't want "a distributed platform that isn't irc", but a platform they like. IRC fails primarily due to requiring a persistent TCP connection, and secondarily due to not supporting image sharing, and tertiarily, due to not supporting emoji reactions.

Requiring a persistent TCP connection is simply a complete dealbreaker on the mobile phone platforms which make up, like, 90% of computers in existence. Fixing that would go a very long way, but it requires a lot more server-side storage since messages must be stored on the server until a client reconnects.

Data privacy requirements go along with server-side storage. If messages are stored for a few minutes that's probably okay, but that's too short to implement the feature. If they're stored for weeks, and especially if images are stored, then for legal reasons there must be a way to moderate them. On another front, at least the server only needs to store one copy of the message for as long as the slowest client might need it; it might as well just store the entire channel history for a fixed time. These considerations lead to a design like Slack/Discord/Mattermost/etc, and trying to make it decentralized leads to a design like Matrix.

You may think of IRC bouncers which don't have these issues, but notice the responsibility structure of an IRC bouncer is completely different. With a bouncer, the responsibility for storing the message lies with the reader, not with the network, so completely different considerations apply.

Sharing images and videos is just useful sometimes, even though 90% of the time it only serves to increase spam. And I don't get why users are extremely horny for emoji reactions, but they are. A platform can exist just fine without either of them - every social platform develops a unique personality in response to the constraints and nudges the platform imposes on users - HN doesn't have images, videos or emojis and that's a good thing for HN. It's the persistent connection thing that's the real killer, because it means the platform is simply unusable 90% of the time.

A version of IRC tailored to slower connections might look identical to (the non-binary segment of) Usenet. However, even Usenet has light moderation, that differs per server, to avoid being clogged with spam and binaries.

I'm not that active on matrix (mostly just passively listening on a few topics that interest me).

However, regarding your last point there seems to be an active focus on improving element and their recent post about elementX [1].

I agree with your other points though, there are a lot of experiments that often lead to nowhere (e.g. P2P is basically abandoned AFAIK).

[1]: https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/

Where does someone begin with Matrix? The homepage mentions servers but how do you choose one? Is it like the ferdiverse with its hundreds of mastodon servers?

>nobody is buying drugs on matrix

That's proper level of security, when people don't even suspect someone using messenger to buy drugs

> or writing an experimental p2p homeserver

I wish. I think this hasn't been the case for at least a year or two.

I'm sure the government financial support comes tied to a need for that securitygasm after all!

The cryptography and security aspect is actually one of Matrix’s good selling points for many companies looking to adopt it…

The reason it feels like Element hasn’t moved for years is because we have been focused on fixing the mobile apps and crypto: https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-...

The web app has been evolving too, but less dramatically - we need to enable instant sync there.

In terms of custom emoji and selfserve moderation: both are the direct casualties of having to focus exclusively on servicing the government customers who actually pay for Element development. Since the end of 2022 we have had to completely change focus to first generating $ in order to be sustainable, and that meant parking everything but Element X, Web, Call and Synapse. The Libera mess is also effectively a symptom of that.

P2P, Dendrite, Thirdroom etc have all been shelved for over a year. (Weird to see so many year-stale comments on a year-stale blog post).