> What you seem to want is a peer-to-peer solution, which at this point in time is not something Matrix has built or claims to have built.
Except we have: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix. We have people working on it full time, and hopefully going to evolve into hybrid P2P/Client-Server eventually as per that blog post.
Meanwhile, portable identities are also in active development (as part of P2P), as per https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/neilalexander/....
> e2ee is absolutely necessary, and it took until May this year for Matrix to enable that feature by default
Sorry, you're complaining that we... did the thing you want us to do? But it took longer than you wanted? My heart bleeds.
I've managed to talk 6 people into making an account (matrix.org) and using element. None of them are linux-y or tech-y and they've mostly managed fine (apart from help with setting up e2ee, exporting keys etc which I helped with).
Is the app dead easy to use (like WhatsApp, Viber, Signal)? No it isn't but it's understandable.
Gosh sorry I remember seeing that post, but for some reason I thought it was more of a concept without anything shipped yet. I should do a better job of reading.
Exciting!!
Wasn't complaining. I don't use Matrix.
> Meanwhile, portable identities are also in active development (as part of P2P),
Portable identities should be how it works by default. Nobody should be asked to sign up with a server and share their email address and metadata with it.
I'm well aware that FOSS projects tend to be underfunded. Matrix is an outlier with some large grants fueling the project and opaque organizational structure.
> What you seem to want is a peer-to-peer solution, which at this point in time is not something Matrix has built or claims to have built.
Peer-to-peer is not absolutely necessary (it can be both). There's nothing wrong with routing message through a network, but e2ee is absolutely necessary, and it took until May this year for Matrix to enable that feature by default. Most importantly, in Matrix, your identity is associated with and controlled by a homeserver. It's under someone else's control. That's not good... Your identity should be under your control. We've known how to do this with asymmetric encryption for at least a couple of decades.