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A comment on Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store. Parent comment

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by est31 on Saturday January 30, 2021 @04:34AM (#25967668)
Your users still benefit from less centralization. The main matrix.org instance might ban them for whatever reason, but their access to your internal server is not touched. It's different if all of you used Signal or Discord and their account got banned e.g. for using an alternative client.
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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by o-__-o on Saturday January 30, 2021 @05:24AM (#25967898)
Signal is open source you can run your own non-federated signal server. You can use a custom signal client against the federated network too.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vq4k/thousands-of-users-un...

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by rglullis on Saturday January 30, 2021 @06:50AM (#25968341)
Signal Server has not seen updates for over 9 months. Moxie openly states that is not part of Signal's core values to support federation in the network.

IOW, even though they say they don't want to control your conversation, they do want you in their hands.

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by o-__-o on Saturday January 30, 2021 @11:26AM (#25970341)
But. The point is still that you can run your own non-federated signal server or connect your own client to their federated network.
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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by rglullis on Saturday January 30, 2021 @12:50PM (#25971168)
An outdated version of the server whose development team has no incentive whatsoever of supporting for your use case.

Can you run it? Sure. Should you?

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by o-__-o on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:32PM (#25972155)
Why does any source code exist then? What is the point of GitHub with codebases that are 7+ years old? Would mass adoption of the outdated server force updates or god forbid a fork of the code base?

Please excuse me for being direct, I do not accept your defeatist attitude on this one. You won’t have stickers, such a shame, but you would have the ability to create your own signal service

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by rglullis on Saturday January 30, 2021 @06:18PM (#25974038)
If Signal was the only alternative to have an internal messaging tool, sure, it would make sense to invest time and money on it to keep it up.

But it doesn't. There are options. If I had to choose, I would rather invest this time and money to collaborate on the existing protocols that do have the goal of being fully open. Matrix and XMPP can do the things that I want and there are plenty of people working on them to overcome the present issues and challenges for mass adoption.

Why should I swim upstream by myself if there is no special reward for this kind of effort?

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by o-__-o on Sunday January 31, 2021 @10:34AM (#25979527)
Because the signal client is very straightforward and easy to use. You gonna teach your grandma how to connect to a mumble or matrix server?

I know you are a nerd but your users are not.

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by rglullis on Sunday January 31, 2021 @01:27PM (#25981166)
My grandma does not use any kind of phone, so it is going to be hard to get her to Element or Signal or anything.

However, my mother does use Element to talk with me and it wasn't that hard to help her download an app, tell her where to put the username and what is the name of the matrix server and quickly she was on her way to start a call and setup a room with the rest of the family where I share the pictures of her grandkids.

My users may not be nerds, but they are not stupid. They can learn.

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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by est31 on Saturday January 30, 2021 @06:09AM (#25968143)
Moxie is not friendly towards such third party clients that connect to the main network. Also, I only used it as an example. There might be other reasons for a ban. The point is that you don't depend on them.
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