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Last year (I guess 2024? When did Discord threaten to IPO/CEO change?), and 5 years ago I launched a Matrix server.
It's good improvements have happened - I saw the Matrix presentation for the new audio and video chats that are coming some day maybe (maybe they released? I think that was 2 months ago), those were cool.
Someone really needs to do a feature parity check nowadays. I mean, I'll build *another* Matrix server, but it's draining.
@MxVerda …that’s a good question, I don’t know the answer to that. So like an audio version of browsing “TikTok’s” (like spontaneously rolling up on music or podcasts)?
@dthompson @polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely personally I find the decentralized nature of Mastodon to be quite robust, but that’s because I limit who can join my server so I don’t get overrun, in data bandwidth, storage, or moderation…
A feature that would be welcome and might alleviate your concerns is high availability so other servers can carry the load when one server fails or disappears, kind of like IRC.
@SprocketClown @tim @cwebber @spritely Stoat has a good UX but not decentralized in any way and their plans for that are not robust (see: “maybe one day”). It’s a “kick the Discord problem down the road a bit” solution. Perhaps that’s what we need with no real solution available right now.
@dthompson @polyfloyd @cwebber @spritely That’s because Stoat doesn’t have decentralized federated features. In fact, if you want to connect to another server, you have to compile the client and distribute it.
Saying this, Federation of chat channels might be unnecessary tech. What you need is a client that easily connects to multiple servers (“communities”) simultaneously with a single login, of which that login server can be federated.
@SprocketClown @tim @cwebber @spritely Gotta agree, as someone who has set up a Matrix server, the UX has been and still is a disaster (give them 10 years and it’ll still look like XMPP), and they have literal “pro” versions of Matrix that are NOT the same source as community and are hosted by them.
Discord isn’t a good company, but they made a functional UX and understood that simple is intuitive.
