(just because I sometimes miss them when the post has a text body)
So, I kept seeing the option to list a “Matrix” username in my lemmy profile across various instances, but I had no idea what Matrix actually was. This is from last December so it’s not hot off the press, but it was a good read and I wanted to share it in hopes it might help add some context for anyone else like me wondering what it’s all about!
XMPP is still alive and well as a protocol, google just kinda stole it (other stuff still uses it too tho but unfederated). I know the majority of folks i talked to over XMPP were actually just using it because it was part of google talk, then hangouts, then google decided to defederate hangouts and eventually killed it alltogether but people moved to facebook or whatsapp for the most part.
Also I think the timing was off for XMPP, in large part people who used it also still used IRC for groups even though XMPP also supported groups you didn’t really see major open source projects making XMPP groups to go along with their IRC channels like you have with matrix. Now what we really need is for discord to join with Twitter and Reddit in enshittification of their products so average folks get fed up enough to move over.