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.

@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.

@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 👌

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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?”)

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

@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! 🤣

@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.