Why not XMPP?
discuss.privacyguides.net
To be honest, I don’t quite understand why Matrix passes this hurdle and XMPP does not. Matrix is just as little designed for privacy as XMPP. Metadata is also generated, is also not E2EE (as far as I know) and is also distributed further by federation than in XMPP. The quality of the clients is also very differing. I also see the advantages of Matrix and use it myself, but I find it quite interesting how an extra category was recently created to keep Matrix in the recommendations, although it...

Edit: Matrix isn’t going freemium, it’s introducing premium accounts to fund the matrix.org homeserver. Thank you for the corrections in the comments.

Matrix is going freemium Matrix is introducing premium accounts and WhatsApp is adding ads, which is sparking the annual “time to leave [app]” threads.

Users don’t care that much about privacy, but they do care about enshittification, so XMPP not being built for it shouldn’t be a problem.

Meanwhile, I’ve heard for years that XMPP has solved a lot of the problems that lead more popular apps to fail.

Is it really just a marketing/UX/UI problem?

If XMPP had a killer app with all the features that Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram has, would it have as many users?

If not, why does it keep getting out-adopted by new apps and protocols?

  • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    Is it really just a marketing/UX/UI problem?

    The UI is definitely a problem. I’ve never seen a remotely modern-looking XMPP UI.

    If XMPP had a killer app with all the features that Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram has, would it have as many users?

    Well, first of all, these 3 all have vastly different amounts of users.

    Secondly no, marketing is still a big deal. WhatsApp is leaning heavily on Meta’s other products for marketing and integration. They’re able to use these to make them convenient to sign up and get messaging. What I don’t get is why Meta doesn’t just unite all 3 under “Messenger”.

    • underline960@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      4 days ago

      What I don’t get is why Meta doesn’t just unite all 3 under “Messenger”.

      They needed a smaller app for countries that don’t have WiFi, only cell plans.

      A lot of countries use only Messenger or WhatsApp, and consolidating them would change the name and be a brand risk.