P2P is the answer, Matrix has been doing this for a few years

There’s Revolt and Matrix, both are open source and can be self hosted.

TIL that XMPP is defined in an RFC. You’re correct, I wasn’t aware of that. I really don’t understand why the IETF take such a decision though. I don’t know why these guys are defining high-level protocols for things like messaging at all.

But back to your earlier points:

For example you can’t have end-to-end encryption if you use a non-standard protocol

This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Matrix has E2EE while using a “non-standard” protocol. So does Signal, in fact, it created the strongest E2EE protocol out there.

VC startups like Matrix only increase fragmentation of the ecosystem

Every new project that is created increases fragmentation. So does Revolt, Discord, Skype, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc. These all use “non-standard” protocols.

Also, the author of RFC 6120 is a Cisco employee, how is a multinational corporation better than a VC-funded startup? XMPP is an open standard, just like the Matrix protocol. It doesn’t matter who created it.

That doesn’t make any sense

Nah, they have a clause in their EULA which allows this, it’s ridiculous. Piracy is the only solution.

Who defines standard internet protocols and how is XMPP one of them??? “Standard internet protocols” are DNS, HTTP, TLS, etc.

VCs suck, but Matrix is open source, everyone can self-host their own server, write their own client or even fork the entire protocol.

https://github.com/revoltchat

It isn’t proprietary either

What part of Matrix is proprietary? It’s not an app, instead, it’s an open protocol that can be used by anyone to build a messaging app or host a server.

Is this a serious question?

This is the exact same ridiculous argument that proprietary software corporations make. It never made any sense, security through obscurity will never work. Linux is open-source used on ~80% of all web servers, in your logic these servers would all be vulnerable. It just doesn’t make any sense. Linux is also used in many embedded devices and Android is based on the Linux kernel. But Android (which is also entirely open source) has one of the best security models out there.

Louis Rossmann made some amazing videos about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACX_VfsjkZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_XiaMzzZUo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVWk9Zh82O4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxDDXCo7bfU

The Free Software Foundation Europe has an awesome initiative called Public Money Public Code where they try to convince lawmakers to use as much open source software as possible when using public funds. I really hope they succeed.

I agree

I think this is a rhetorical question

Discord is an absolute piece of garbage, it’s not a good messaging app, definitely not a good place to host a community (seriously, I don’t understand why some communities saw Discord as an alternative after the Reddit API changes), and most importantly, it’s spyware. The company doesn’t have a business model and it was founded by a guy who is notorious for creating random shit that’s not economically sustainable at all. I don’t understand why anyone would use this shit. This video outlines everything that’s wrong with Discord: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uvNkdAggUGU

Switch to Revolt or Matrix

You’re right, I edited my original comment to include advice on how to do this

Linux Mint is awesome for beginners.

Removed by mod

It’s pretty ok but Firefox Focus is better. DuckDuckGo Browser uses Chromium under the hood and thus supports Google’s monopoly on web rendering engines.