[_def]

I think these two topics need to be looked at a bit separately, similar to for example WhatsApp, where you have e2ee but there are still lots of privacy risks.

In the matrix ecosystem, as far as I understand, having only one user from the matrix.org homeserver in your room already undermines metadata privacy to some degree. Also, there still are issues with decrypting messages from time to time with certain combinations of clients, rooms and homeservers, which effectively means that the "failsafe" option for getting messages across the network is using unencrypted rooms.

Having free, secure, federated, usable instant messaging is still not solved imho, and I think it's not easy to solve. So far matrix is the best attempt in my book, but it's also not there (yet?).

[uyzstvqs]

> So far matrix is the best attempt in my book, but it's also not there (yet?).

IMO XMPP is the best attempt so far, but it's completely outdated by today's standards. Matrix is a modern attempt, but it's just bad. I doubt that Matrix will actually get anywhere usable in the future.

It's absolutely possible to build such a protocol with high performance, seamless UX, Signal's level of privacy and security, and Discord's level of features. It's just a lot of work to actually build the specifications and flagship implementations, compared to just building a good centralized option.

[Arathorn]

> Matrix is a modern attempt, but it's just bad. I doubt that Matrix will actually get anywhere usable in the future.

Obviously I’m biased, but I seriously suggest looking at the various vids from the Conference. Matrix has definitely had some ups and downs in the past, but right now it is in a good place.

[_def]

On XMPP, I agree. I think requirements also changed a lot over the years with smartphones and mobile internet access everywhere.

And yeah it's definitely possible, but it's a lot of work, both technically and from an organizational perspective (funding, governance, etc).

[upofadown]

>I think requirements also changed a lot over the years with smartphones and mobile internet access everywhere.

I recently started using an XMPP client on a smart phone (Cheogram, fork of Conversations). It handles that stuff remarkably well. Switching between, say, mobile data and WiFi takes seconds. It seems to have some way of noticing the loss of connection and immediately fires up a new TCP connection on the new medium.