[16]

> But until any of these new age apps/platforms support federation and decentralized communication, there's not much use for the masses to look for servers run by specific people.

Have you not heard of https://matrix.org?

100% open source server + client(s), decentralized, federated, easy to stand up your own server, end-to-end encryption, bridges to tons of other networks (IRC, telegram, slack, mattermost, etc), full history sync even when you log in from new devices, read receipts (even for individual users in group chats). They're by far (in my opinion) the most feature-rich of the "new-age" communication systems. I've been running my own homeserver for over a year now and I can't recommend it highly enough.

[newscracker]

Thanks for the mention and the description of the features and benefits of Matrix. It sounds like music to my ears! I did hear about Matrix probably a year or two ago, but didn't think much of it at that time. I tend to look these up once every several months or so to see what's available and what improvements have happened. I'll have to check this out again.