I've been looking into Matrix as a "personal IM bridge" and I'm thinking this could be a way for Matrix to get traction.
Let's say you're in a position that I think may here are: You would prefer to use IM in a secure way. Let me qualify "secure" for this purpose meaning: Encryption of communication in rest and transit; not relying on a single infra/network/service provider; being able to communicate with new peers easily without having to sign up with new providers; not requiring sign-ups leaking PIIs such as phone numbers; being able to sync message history across devices; all of this should hold for group conversations.
matrix.org seems to be on the right track towards that. Feature-wise there's some missing pieces in terms of federation but the roadmap looks like the ambition is right.
But in practice, it's realistically years until you can meet a random person in a bar and ask to join you on matrix to stay in touch, so many of us will still keep our accounts on the not-as-great platforms such as FB, Skype, WhatsApp, Signal.
Given that, wouldn't it be nice to facilitate using those platforms in a way that 1) absolves you from the behavioral tracking that comes with most of the first-party web- and smartphone apps and 2) integrates them in the same UI?
There are, of course, solutions to this end. Bitblbee (IRC gateway), libpurple (pidgin, finch), third-party clients like franz. I'm sure there are many here who have or are using libpurple or bitlbee for this.
But matrix also has bridges!
I'm thinking one potential way that matrix could really get traction and seed the network infrastructure would be just that. Given stable gateways for the IM networks people already use, it's suddenly a much easier sell to get enthusiasts and power-users to self-host matrix servers just to solve their own bridging needs and get a unified flow for disparate protocols.
As that grows, eventually there's a large spread-out flora of matrix servers that can become part of something larger.
I think if there's one thing that can make matrix succeed in it's mission, it's stable, feature-complete (or at least ticking the important boxes for the majority) bridges to mainstream services such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Signal, LINE, Skype, Google and Keybase.
I think this should be a focus for Matrix, and amazing it would be to have these be the fruit of voluntary contributors, some funding is likely required if it's to be sustainable as proprietary protocols and endpoints will inevitably break.
What's your take on that? I realize it's a long comment and I'm in a bit of a rush, but I'd be really curious to hear how you think about these things.
We're working on making bridges better integrated in Matrix to help with this use case - it's certainly a good way to drive uptake.
On the other hand, bridges are always an impedance mismatch - you have to keep up with new features on both side of the bridge, and the system you're bridging into doesn't always want to be bridged.
So, we think bridges are a key thing for Matrix (it's where the name comes from - matrixing together different comms platforms!) - but it'd be wrong to predicate the success of the protocol on bridges. They're useful, they have their place, but they're not the sole reason to use Matrix.
On feature-mismatch, I don't think it has to be that big of a deal - as long as
* delivering messages and file/image attachments work reliably in both directions
* stickers and other native attachments (location, audio clips, etc) can be received, not necessarily sent
, that's absolutely Good Enough for daily use for me and I imagine many others.
Reactions and sending of stickers etc optional, but if that's there, that's basically full parity of what anyone in the target audience mentioned above could expect. Actual parsing of non-plaintext data is obviously up to clients and should be approachable for the average casual contributor.
> the system you're bridging into doesn't always want to be bridged.
This should be the crucial and challenging part to maintain.
> This should be the crucial and challenging part to maintain.
More than that, some of the system explicitely _don't_ want to be bridged, because retaining users in their silos brings in more money than maintaining a window to the world outside the silo. It's tolerated at best today, but you can be sure that if a bridge ever get traction, the Whatsapps/Facebooks/Wechats will do what they can to block you.
Rather than betting on the bridges in the long term, I believe it's in your interest (as a Matrix user) to host a bridge to Whatsapp, and tell your Whatsapp friends that it kinda works but it's gonna fail at some point, so they better have a second account for the future. Install the account for them even, that removes some of the friction. But ultimately you have to realize that Whatsapp doesn't want to talk to Matrix (the situation is completely different for an open protocol of course, like IRC or XMPP)
I'm not Arathorn (and not even a Matrix user yet, barely ever on Signal too), but the problem with bridges to 3rd-parties is that you're effectively allowing these non-Matrix users to keep doing what they're doing, instead of incentivising them to switch. The walled gardens know this very well - that's why they've discontinued their XMPP gateways.
Let's say you're in a position that I think may here are: You would prefer to use IM in a secure way. Let me qualify "secure" for this purpose meaning: Encryption of communication in rest and transit; not relying on a single infra/network/service provider; being able to communicate with new peers easily without having to sign up with new providers; not requiring sign-ups leaking PIIs such as phone numbers; being able to sync message history across devices; all of this should hold for group conversations.
matrix.org seems to be on the right track towards that. Feature-wise there's some missing pieces in terms of federation but the roadmap looks like the ambition is right.
But in practice, it's realistically years until you can meet a random person in a bar and ask to join you on matrix to stay in touch, so many of us will still keep our accounts on the not-as-great platforms such as FB, Skype, WhatsApp, Signal.
Given that, wouldn't it be nice to facilitate using those platforms in a way that 1) absolves you from the behavioral tracking that comes with most of the first-party web- and smartphone apps and 2) integrates them in the same UI?
There are, of course, solutions to this end. Bitblbee (IRC gateway), libpurple (pidgin, finch), third-party clients like franz. I'm sure there are many here who have or are using libpurple or bitlbee for this.
But matrix also has bridges!
I'm thinking one potential way that matrix could really get traction and seed the network infrastructure would be just that. Given stable gateways for the IM networks people already use, it's suddenly a much easier sell to get enthusiasts and power-users to self-host matrix servers just to solve their own bridging needs and get a unified flow for disparate protocols.
As that grows, eventually there's a large spread-out flora of matrix servers that can become part of something larger.
I think if there's one thing that can make matrix succeed in it's mission, it's stable, feature-complete (or at least ticking the important boxes for the majority) bridges to mainstream services such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Signal, LINE, Skype, Google and Keybase.
I think this should be a focus for Matrix, and amazing it would be to have these be the fruit of voluntary contributors, some funding is likely required if it's to be sustainable as proprietary protocols and endpoints will inevitably break.
What's your take on that? I realize it's a long comment and I'm in a bit of a rush, but I'd be really curious to hear how you think about these things.