I have four messaging clients running on my desktop: Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp & Slack. It's not dead.

How many of those have full functionality? I know that WhatsApp is just a client for the mobile app, without voice and video.

Signal and Telegram include audio/video functionality on the desktop.

Also, not sure what they do to it (no Electron?), but Telegram feels super fast, really pleasant experience.

The fact that Telegram is a Qt app that looks nice and is lightweight makes it really good; it's just a shame it's centralised.

Almost any other messaging platform is dominated by Electron clients (bar the few very WIP Matrix clients such as Neochat).

It has voice and video now (marked 'beta' and only for 1-to-1 calls).

But I agree, all of these clients suck in their own way. :(

Slack is an Electron app. It's basically their website on top of a bundled browser.

I don't know about the others. Are any of them native?

That's one of the reasons I like matrix. Real multi-client support within the same account and each client is independent of each other.

Well sure that's a strong selling point of both matrix and XMPP. What matrix clients are you using and which do you recommend for desktop use? I stopped using matrix because Element was really slow/buggy, but decent CLI/desktop clients with tor integration do interest me (there was just none of those at the time).

Presumably because one of the main attractions of IM clients is being able to quickly get someone to respond. Many people carry their personal phone around all the time and are proactively notified when you send them a message, whereas they spend far less time on personal desktops, and notifications there are far less intrusive.

Still, most of the time a lot of people will be sitting in front of or pretty close to their laptops. Having the clients available on the phone should not mean that we can't have it on the desktop as well. Though, of course, the number 1 priority is being accessible, so unfortunately the priority will be the mobile app, even if quite a lot of people would use that less, for longer chats if they had a choice.

I do not share your observation that most people are sitting in front of or close to their personal laptops, and even if they did, I still think the barrier to checking messages would be higher than for their vibrating phone.

But yes, of course a phone client does not preclude a desktop client; it's just that being phone-first forces/nudges people to having it on their phone as well, making it more valuable for everyone they know.

I was careful enough not to say that most people are sitting in front or close to their personal laptops. I said a lot of people most of the time. (And also didn't say personal, but I guess that doesn't matter.)

The point of the laptop is not checking the messages, but typing them. If you're at home, which is where a lot of us are these days, it's pretty easy to open the laptop and save time on typing.

BTW, not sure why I got downvoted. Maybe it wasn't you, we'll see.

But that's exactly the point: if it's not most people, then network effects are already greatly limited. And if those laptops aren't their personal laptops, then the odds of them having a personal messaging client open are even lower. Consider that most people do have their personal phone on them at all times.

My point was exactly that pressuring people to have the client on their phone makes them check the messages more often, because that makes the service more attractive to other users. That, I think, is the reason most popular service are phone-first, even when typing messages is easier on desktop.

(And no, I didn't downvote.)

Actually a desktop client is planned. But it's definitely a minority of people who want one, so we're working to get mobile right first.

I actually think we have a competitive advantage here... developing native desktop apps is costly, and most commercial platforms don't bother these days (most you'll get just use a web client in Electron).

However I believe open-source makes it possible to sustain. You can already use native clients such as (the latest version of) Gajim with a Snikket server, but currently without the guarantee it's been tested and interoperable on every single feature... we'll get to that.

> I actually think we have a competitive advantage here... developing native desktop apps is costly, and most commercial platforms don't bother these days (most you'll get just use a web client in Electron)

Telegram has a Qt client which is faster and slicker than anything electron-based tho

You should give dino.im a try. I've been using it for the last few months alongside conversations.im and it's been great with syncing even encrypted messages.

Not sure what you mean by "dead", but what do you use to communicate with colleagues at work?

He's not talking about corporate messengers, that's for sure.

He's talking about the most used apps in the world, the ones you use to keep in touch with friends and family. Most of their apps are either websites on top of a bundled browser.

I know far more people that use discord (on both desktop and mobile) than those that use signal.