cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/40286422
Is UX/UI and marketing really the reason XMPP lags behind Signal/Matrix/Telegram?
Matrix is going Freemium and WhatsApp is adding ads, which is sparking the annual “time to leave [app]” threads.
Users don’t care that much about privacy, but they do care about enshittification, so XMPP not being built for it shouldn’t be a problem.
Meanwhile, I’ve heard for years that XMPP has solved a lot of the problems that lead more popular apps to fail.
Is it really just a marketing/UX/UI problem?
If XMPP had a killer app with all the features that Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram has, would it have as many users?
If not, why does it keep getting out-adopted by new apps and protocols?
It’s not the reason, but it certainly is a reason.
Another reason is. That it is an old protocol from the late 90s. And there isn’t a lot of Buzz about it these days. A lot of the problematic centralization we all now recognize was just becoming the norm.
Feature parity at the time is also another big hurdle. Things we all take for granted especially in this day and age Avatar profile pictures etc. Jabber/xmpp did not have that for years. It may be a useless feature in terms of sending messages. people still like personalization etc. And it’s hard to convince people to switch if they have to give it up.
Jump to today. And arguably services like Twitter Mastodon Facebook Etc all sort of fill that Niche to an extent. Maybe not as well. But enough again that it’s going to be hard to get people to switch to yet another system