| > i.e. that users shouldn't have to depend on someone else's server or run their own just to gather online I don't understand this. Can you elaborate exactly what you mean? Because to me... you're now just depending on a whole bunch of other people's machines indirectly, and directly on the community owner's machine which is generating the certs. It feels like a lot of complexity for something that could just be a small chat server running on the community owner's server (which they will need anyways - unless I'm misunderstanding, which is entirely possible). --- So since I'm probably missing something - can I get the elevator pitch? Assume I'm your target market (I want private messaging that I control). I would likely be a "community owner" as described in your article. I am already running a self-hosted solution (ex: Zulip/Rocket/Mattermost). What makes this a compelling offering to me? |
(Quiet founder here) Great question! If you're already happy running your own self-hosted Zulip/Rocket/Mattermost/Matrix and you have no problems with maintenance or downtime, Quiet is just a cool demo and probably not useful!
If you cannot run a server (a minority on HN but a majority of the world) or you do not want to (maybe a slim majority on HN?) and you need a team chat with nice privacy properties, Quiet is being built for you!
The thing that frustrates me about free and open source software that requires servers is: most people don't have servers! And the prevalent model for using others' servers involves a terrible power / dependence relationship. One thing that drives me to build Quiet is that I want to see a world where free software comes "batteries included" with all of its promised freedoms and advantages, for the vast majority who do not have servers.