The “Matrix Experiment”, i.e. running a Matrix server for our family, has failed completely and miserably. People don’t accept it. They attribute unrelated things to it, like “I can’t send messages to you, I don’t reach you! It doesn’t work!” Yes, you do, I get those messages, I just don’t reply quickly enough because I’m at work or simply doing something else.

I’ll probably shut it down.

Nobody cares about privacy. The reasons I bring up in discussions are “too nerdy”. They put all their stuff to Google or Apple, so why would messaging be any different? (We’re not even using all those Matrix crypto stuff … That would be insane.)

It’s a lost cause. I’m frustrated.

Will I give in and use WhatsApp instead? Not sure yet.

If WhatsApp was just a messenger, I probably wouldn’t be so reluctant to join. But it’s an app that insists on running on a smartphone. It has access to so much metadata … Fuck this shit. 🫤

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Don’t give up.

What about Signal? I’m had great success with this, friends, family, neighboards. They get it. It works. I don’t have to worry about it too much.

@prologic@twtxt.net I’ll look into it. 🤔 The good thing is that I think some people already use Signal. We’ll see.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I think it’s a good choice, better than anything else to be honest.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Kind of a good perspective really 👌

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, it’s hard(er) with family members. I shouldn’t have started that Matrix stuff – before that, they had an easier time accepting that I don’t use WhatsApp. Now it’s more like “why don’t you switch?”

“Joy of missing out”, eh? :D

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I feel your pain like my own. No matter what I do, I am always outnumbered by the ignoramus in the family. It is like bashing one’s head on a brick wall.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I don’t have much family and I talk to them on the phone but I’ve been there on two occasions with friends and Jabber.

They attribute unrelated things to it, like “I can’t send messages to you, I don’t reach you! It doesn’t work!”

This scenario has played out the same way for me multiple times. It’s uncanny.

I have some friends on Jabber now but it took time to make that happen. It helps that Conversations on Android is really good. I just hand them $5 cash and have them buy it on the Play Store so I don’t have to answer questions about F-Droid and APK files.

On iOS, I recommend Siskin IM which works most of the time but I need to set it up for them because it doesn’t handle captcha registration very well (fields are shown that shouldn’t be and it’s confusing) and it doesn’t enable OMEMO by default (iirc).

I also used to refer to it as “XMPP”, but I think that made it worse for me. “Jabber” is much less technical-sounding and some people remember hearing others talk about it.

@mckinley@twtxt.net Last time I tried jabber was probably 10 years ago. How’s group chat these days? Is it comparable to “modern” chat systems, does it feel the same?

I guess it’s irrelevant which platform I’m going to propose as an alternative to WhatsApp. It’s the same old problem: Almost all their contacts are on WhatsApp, so that’s what they want to use, end of story.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Group chat is still pretty rough around the edges, especially if you want encryption. I don’t use it with my friends. If you need group chat, it’s probably better to use something else.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de TBH I don’t like Matrix… It feels a bit messy, my conversations and servers I join tend to get mangled, some stuff tend to have some sub-stuff… etc. I don’t hate it though, because I know I may have been using it wrong.

But hey, have you ever tried Databag ? Your family might get a better user experience with this one.

@mckinley@twtxt.net Hmmmmm, yeah, sounds like jabber is not the right thing for us then.

@aelaraji@aelaraji.com To be honest, I don’t like Matrix that much myself. We don’t use any of the fancy crypto features and all that, no federation either. And clients like “FluffyChat” look and feel pretty much like any other chat client. It’s a rather simple setup. Problem is just that it’s not WhatsApp and people want WhatsApp, nothing else. 🫤 (Hence I have little hope that Signal would be a big success.)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de The first time I tried matrix I didn’t like it either. I tried to join the public room and waited and waited and waited and waited for like 20+ minutes before I could even see anything in the room or even talk in the room! I just find the protocol to be so fucking overcomplicated for what it actually is meant to do.

I admit I’ve always compromised on this way too much myself, always to this day having Facebook Messenger just to communicate in my families group chats. Sure I run it in a Work profile on my GrapheneOS phone that I can switch off at any time, I can completely cut it off from network access any time as well, I can have a lot of rudimentary control over it, I use it as sparingly as possible, but it doesn’t change the fact everytime I use it we’re funneling private convos through bloody Meta’s servers and trackers etc.

I tried Signal, and I didn’t like it. I don’t like the interface, I don’t like one has to rely on a relatively small company infrastructure. It has bugs, and issues: sometimes messages will deliver, sometimes they will not.

Nothing has been more stable for me (as an Apple user, that is) than Messages. It comes with the OS, it is beautiful, and it just works.

@bender@twtxt.net Messages (formally known as iMessages) has always lacked e2e encryption though and often falls back to using SMS which is worse for security and privacy. – OTOH this might be all changing for the better with Google lounging for a new standard? 🤔 (Although I do have to wonder: “What’s in it for Google?”)

Related to this.

“Some users experienced message delivery delays beginning last night that primarily impacted linked devices like Signal Desktop. We just deployed a fix. Affected users might see failed delivery notices while Signal automatically catches up. We apologize for the inconvenience!”

Source: Signal Fediverse account

I’m experimenting with WhatsApp at the moment and it’s worse than I expected. 😳 There is https://web.whatsapp.com/ which you can use on a normal PC without constantly having the app running/installed on your phone. That was tempting. But … you can’t really do anything here. You can’t even initiate new chats to another phone number. It looks like this only works if you give the app on your phone access to your contact list – a total asshole move.

Fuck this. ☹️

@movq@www.uninformativ.de And you thought it would be what exactly? 🤔 This is Meta we’re talking about 🤣

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah, call me naive. If they offer a web client, I’d expect it to be at least usable? Why does this even exist?

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I think you’re mistaking expectations for quality software 🤣 When have you ever seen quality software out of an enterprise? 😅

I’ve been tricked! 🤣

WhatsApp locked me out of my test account for violating their TOS. Huh? I hardly even used it? Or is that the violation – not immediately feeding them with all available data about my private life? 🤣

@movq@www.uninformativ.de the algorithms are nuts everywhere. I was cancelled from Instagram and TikTok a while back for the same reason, yet, at the time I got the email telling me about it I hadn’t used them both for over a year. 🤷🏻

@bender@twtxt.net Sigh. 🫤 Elon Musk should buy Meta. Problem solved. 🤣

@movq@www.uninformativ.de pleas no.

My wifes mom nearly got her account fully taken over by some hacker. They were able to get control and change password but I was able to get it recovered before they could get the phone number reset. They sent messages to all her contacts to send cash.