this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Most people don't use federated services. I know it's ironic that an open source project isn't using open source channels, but sometimes it's best to stick to services that are easy access and popular.
I'm sure if enough people got in contact about using open source communication they would likely attempt it.
Not to mention that self-hosting/federation comes with a million small headaches.
If the devs are paid, do you want to pay them to work on the project or work on maintaining a contact infrastructure?
If they aren't paid, do you want them using what little free time they have working on the app or working on maintaining a communications network?
If it's someone else's forum/matrix/chat server, are you okay with 1. a third party having access to your communications and 2. being able to force a comms blackout for any reason whatsoever?
Or would you rather they use their time and money focusing on finding a provider who meets every need of the project AND every user?
You said it better than I could
These do not meet the philosophical or privacy needs of users. Look at how the Switch emulator situation was handled where one megacorporation told another megacorporation to shutdown their communications & they did. Look at how US sanctions prevent users form touching these platforms. Look at how the feds & advertizers use all the collected data.
You see the chicken-egg situation here, right?
You can have multiple channels. You can bridge. You can designate some spaces as reserved but unofficial. They do list a Matrix in the finer print, but not choosing it as primary is madness IMO since the option are certainly good enough & if you believe in the philosophy you will direct your community in this direction to inspire other folks to uptake & hopefully improve our freedom-respecting options. Instead you start at bifurcating a community along lines of those that want ethical software & privacy over those who are willing/able to give it up—which as you say is definitely ironic given the marketing buzzwords chosen like “self-hosted”, “respects your privacy”, “open source”.
Right but a small company or even a group of people aren't going to put resources into something that a few % of people use. Look at Linux, despite it being the most used operating system in the world, retail sticks to windows and Mac, so it just doesn't get the same level of support.
I completely agree in the sense people should educate themselves and use products that benefit them and don't abuse them, but people don't. And because people don't, companies won't.
Folks are free to do what they want with their project just as I am free to judge them for their choices. The big problem with these sort of communication decisions is that you effectively silence those that would like to raise their hand toward wanting something for them too. “We asked our Discord chat room if they like it & they all said yes, so the community has already spoken with regards to Discord”. If lazy, it is next to zero effort to say: “we also (unofficially) support a Libera.Chat/OFTC room @
#foobar” so the other folks know where to find the other ones that value their bandwidth, system resources, freedom, privacy, security, blocked by sanctions, or just sick of mainstream social media/ads.With regards to Linux, it’s been a grassroots effort by enthusiasts that take the philosophies to heart, & it is just a shame to adopt the licensing, but not the general philosophy. As users, I think we should be more critical of these choices, but there’s a lot of shrug it would be nice, but…
It's harsh to criticise people for not working for free..
Start with good, accesible tools you can have control of—either by self-hosting or that they have their source code available so you can suggest fixes, or migrate off later. Choosing proprietary software like this leads to inevitable lock-in so why start there if we have seen this play out many times?