[asim]

Thanks for sharing that sentiment. I don't quite take the same view on it but understand the approach can be effective. I stopped using slack at some point and it meant I did not speak to the specific group of friends who only communicated through slack. It turned out to be a so-so thing. In some ways I don't know whether it had more negative or positive impact. By taking a stance on it, maybe it was only detrimental to myself or beneficial, whichever way you see it.

On the family front, there's a WhatsApp group and people have learned to use it for that activity, so I can't see that behaviour changing especially when 60+ year olds are in it too. It just became the defacto mode of communication somehow. Yet funnily 10 years ago, I was not a WhatsApp user. A friend of mine dragged me on there. It reminds me of 2006 when people kept asking "Are you on Facebook", like a bunch of drug addicts.

I personally want to move some of my private content and conversations off public servers and on to one I control. Off public networks and on one I know I've secured. That to me as an engineer now makes a lot of sense. But there's also a significant burden to that and I don't think anyone else can do it. Also I don't imagine anyone will setup VPN across my extended family. So there's some things to think through before trying anything.

[rglullis]

> so I can't see that behaviour changing especially when 60+ year olds are in it too

Both my parents are getting closer to their 70's, I got both of them to use Element. Yes, they are still on WhatsApp, yes they would prefer if I used it as well and my grumpy old man always complains about the many quirks from Element's UI on iOS. But at the end of they day we still talk frequently, they still get to see their grandkids, we still have a group to share photos and videos, etc.

The important point that I want to drive home: even if they are still using some other app, my refusal to join has made them aware and able to adopt an alternative.

> I personally want to move some of my private content and conversations off public servers and on to one I control.

As long as you are using

(a) your own domain to keep control of your identity

(b) something based on open standards so that you can port different providers

(c)end-to-end encryption

does it really matter if you are running the service?