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Matrix has too much metadata, i read, and XMPP so far does everything Matrix claims to do. I am sticking with XMPP (Jabber) for as long as i can, especially because it has proven itself over 20 years.
I’m surprised how many fellow xmpp people I see on here, because I feel like matrix has a lot more of the public consciousness. It’s nice! I’m pretty happy with xmpp, though I wish I could find some larger communities.
The lists of public xmpp group chats I’ve found are all centered around xmpp software - clients and servers. If I ever find myself in the position of launching or running a large community (unlikely), I’d try to offer an xmpp-powered chat. It seems like the decision today is Discord -> Matrix -> IRC - xmpp isn’t even in the running. But maybe users have to be a little more vocal.
This is my experience as well. It’s a little disappointing. Still, if anybody has suggestions for xmpp communities I’d be happy to hear it!
You could just roll out your community on XMPP and offer a web+anonymous access to it (converse and movim could be good options). In the end, that’s no different than discord and many users’ first exposure with Matrix. Now that I think of it, there’s a mod_converse for ejabberd and maybe even for prosody as well.
XMPP can be done mostly well, but achieving that is relatively complicated, and free, reliable, public servers that are likely to stay around for long are few and far between. It has proven too much of a pain for mass adoption without a large sponsor, and those are all gone now. It’s not bad for small communities, though, if they have someone well-versed in all the important XEPs maintaining the server and helping people with the clients.
IMHO, Matrix is far better suited to general purpose and large scale messaging. The unprotected metadata is pretty minor, easily avoided if you have a need, and as I recall, on their to-do list. (Also, this article is about a new standard protocol, so criticizing the old one seems a bit off-topic.)
What bothers me is that similar “words of caution” can be had about Matrix: it established itself in the same niche as XMPP, but with a much more convoluted and resource intensive protocol (that many already gave up on hosting at scale due to creeping costs and complexity), with no user benefits for this extra complexity, and with only a single entity (consistently experiencing financing challenges having measurable impacts on the quality of the product) being in charge of developing both the client and the server. That’s some big red flags.
I don’t believe Matrix to have any edge over XMPP nor any characteristics to make it more successful where XMPP isn’t. It is definitely not learning from XMPP’s history and consistently repeating the same mistakes. And this is written as someone who was an early XMPP adopter around the turn of the millennium, moved on, and while learning about it, wanted to love Matrix thinking it could be “XMPP, modern, reborn, without the boomer etiquette”. Turns out current XMPP is just that and Matrix isn’t, and I am happy to self-host XMPP accounts for a few hundred people, family and friends and to no longer have to do it with Matrix.
with no user benefits for this extra complexity,
This is not true. One of the benefits I’ve enjoyed greatly is being able to point a group of non-techies at a URL and have them up and running, with fully encrypted channels, in less than 5 minutes. Another benefit is chat history across multiple devices. There are more.
with only a single entity […] being in charge
Also not true. It’s an open protocol with a well-defined process for contributions. The original authors certainly have influence, but I haven’t seen any gatekeeping there.
of developing both the client and the server.
There is no single client or server. There are multiple clients and servers (with varying levels of resource usage) from multiple developers, and the available options continue to expand.
I’ll grant that XMPP is a simpler protocol, especially in its minimal form without the various XEPs that are needed to even approach a comparison, but it also doesn’t accomplish as much. That’s not a “red flag” for Matrix. Also, this article is specifically about a new protocol.
I am happy to self-host XMPP accounts for a few hundred people, family and friends and to no longer have to do it with Matrix.
Yes, your case is an example of a small community with an informed and involved admin, which I pointed out in my original comment. XMPP can make sense there (I’ve done it too) but it’s a niche within a niche. It doesn’t address the problems that Matrix solves.
How likely do we think this is to be the interop format that the big name messaging apps use to support that EU regulation to allow cross app messaging?
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I personally think it’s likely. Facebook is one of the companies that will be targeted by EU’s DMA and since they co-authored this standard, it seems likely they’d want to use it to respect the DMA. If Facebook uses it, others will adopt it because of their sheer control over messaging services.
