cross-posted from: https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/1939350
Hey all, I just wanted to give my personal view, now is the time to start talking about the Fediverse seriously with friends and family. I always have casually, but I’m starting serious talks with them now that the political climate has… shifted.
We are not the only ones who are concerned about our online privacy. Even people I thought didn’t really care are suddenly concerned (or realizing) that their private chats and DMs may not be as private as they thought. I’ve found that many more people are interested than were even just a few months ago.
Fediverse is a bit harder, I’ve found it’s easier to convince family with “It’s a more private space for us to share vacation photos like we used to”. Even my aging relatives know that facebook isn’t safe to upload intimate family photos to, and they’re looking for a solution. Friendica works well for this (and it’s relatively easy to host a family instance).
Matrix has honestly been easier. It works similar to Discord so those users have been easier to transition, and you may be surprised how many of your friends are only in Discord to chat in your small servers anyway. If the majority of the conversation moves, they probably will to.
The biggest takeaway is, although we are techies, don’t talk about the tech. It turns people away. Let it come up naturally. Describe the places as private, away from prying eyes. When asked “Well can I talk to other people?” Say yes, you’ll show them how when it comes time for it. Don’t bother with saying it’s like email, or this, or that. To them, it’s just an app. Send them to the registration page you want them to join at, and let it flow from there.
Good luck!
while “Could not decrypt message” is the n1 meme for matrix, i haven’t seen it happen in a long while, maybe a year. synapse and element x are quite good at this point, you should try matrix again
im not an element fan, company is a bit spoiled and sassy, but they stopped adding features and went all in on polishing recently. fair, as they’re trying to sell themselves for national deploys
I saw it just yesterday.
And a week ago.
And a month ago.
And I had it myself 2 months ago, fixed by going to the online element client that just happened to still be “verified” after a while of no use and then I could verify the rest of my clients. I would be SoL if I didn’t have one of my original sessions upon making the account years ago still. Interesting system.
That was in the 1 encrypted chat I am a part of.
99% of rooms aren’t encrypted so are completely and totally insecure anyway. Which I guess is fine for community discussion spaces.
I like fluffychat but it doesn’t have threading. Element is also fine and what I have to use on desktop because neochat fucks up so much, but I can’t use it on my phone because it causes an extra 1%/hour drain on my phone battery in the background which is insane. Uninstalled it a year or two ago.
key backups are a thing: element tries to make you save the recovery phrase. if you lost your recovery phrase and all sessions, you can still rotate keys and recover the account, just no encrypted history. it seems you’re not familiar with matrix, not that the system is flawed
if this is true, you wouldn’t even be SoL if you lost your session: just rotate keys. very big rooms are unencrypted: what value does e2ee provide when the other end is 10k+ people? any of these may ne untrustworthy, you’re just paying extra infra cost. also, if 99% of your rooms are unencrypted, how do you keep seeing encryption issues?
these statements seem excessively dramatic and in opposition with each other
you mention neochat and fluffychat. i explicitly said element, and element x on mobile
im rather upset at the fact that we have basically no choice: dendrite is getting left behind, construct is abandoned, conduit is weird and conduwuit is not super reassuring. on the clientside, fluffy mostly works but uses old crypto, cinny is slow and lacks a ton of stuff, nheko is a mess, fractal is really underfeatured and i don’t even know what neochat is. using matrix basically boils down to “synapse+element(x)” or “lmao have fun fixing stuff”
it seems from your replies you lack understanding of how things work and are nonetheless choosing community clients rather than the stuff element does. super valid, i encourage you to do so, just maybe cast your judgment on the actual stuff you’re using and not the whole project itself
i’d like to close saying that your anectodal experience is not of much value here: you are having issues? i’m not, and neither is all those i’m communicating with. what gives? it’s instead observable that newer developments address the issues you’re mentioning: transparent encryption and simplified sliding sync
element is entitled, ignoring feedback and constantly playing the victim. its practices with the protocol are despicable.
the protocol, however, works