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713 points greenburger | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.323s | source
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elric ◴[] No.44297158[source]
Can we get a federated messenger already?

Sure, we have email, but the MS/Google duopoloy has effectively unfederated that, with their inscrutable block lists and nonexistent appeals processes, allegedly in order to protect you from spam.

Sure, XMPP is a thing, which has been mostly dead for well over a decade.

Sure, Matrix is a thing, but every time I look at it, all I see is criticism of its specifications and poor interoperability between implementations?

What would it take to sort out this mess? More money for Matrix or XMPP? Someone with enough clout to promote them? I'm sure organizations like the UN or the EU would, in theory, be in favour of an effective global communicator. But those same organizations would like rail against encryption and decentralisation.

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1. vbezhenar ◴[] No.44297189[source]
We need to keep trying and support alternative implementations. Fighting complexity with money is like fighting fire with gasoline. It does not work.

But messaging apps are especially tricky to take off, because the most important feature of the messaging app is how many friends already using it. So I don't really believe in independent open-source apps becoming popular. It's always startups, funded with billions, pouring those billions into marketing.