All the alternatives off the top of my head seem worse. WhatsApp, for example, is owned by Meta.
Maybe Android could pick up Matrix support out of the box?
Maybe Android could pick up Matrix support out of the box?
It's also got a phone number matchmaking service for those who want it I believe, but for me it's a plus that it doesn't use the phone number as ID so you don't automatically have to share your number with everyone you chat with.
I love Matrix, but non-technical people don't care about these points (I do, though). Matrix needs to have a better official client than Element at its current state before I think it's even worth looking at becoming mainstream.
(I run a Matrix homeserver for myself with literally all of my chat communications going through it)
Edit: my comment sounds super defeatist, I want to clarify that my hope is that Matrix can become something I can recommend to anyone
You know, I probably should get more involved with sharing my feedback or contributing to the codebase where I can so the devs have another data point.
One of the features that does cause confusion for me though is Spaces. Some of my bridges (the whatsapp one in particular) took it upon themselves to put their messages in a separate space, which always has me hunting around for messages, I prefer having all my chats in the same place regardless of what bridge it came from. That was my #1 reason to use Matrix: To have everything in one place. I keep deleting the Whatsapp space but the bridge puts it back. It's a nice idea but only if I can set it up the way I want to.
Anyway I will see where you go with this, at least Matrix is a fully open ecosystem where I can always use the client I wish. Still looking for a nice high-density IRC-like desktop client too (the Xchat mode is nice but my main issue is with the chat list that is not compact enough, and it doesn't fix that). But anyway I'll find something. I know it's difficult to please everyone and it is probably a good idea to target the mainstream like you're doing.
It's not ideal (I'd love a more high-density view for the channel list in particular, the "xchat" view only makes the chats more high-density). But I'm certainly an outlier, most mainstream users would be happy with it as it is.
The one thing that could be improved IMO is the encryption process which is clumsy. Many times I log in a new client and it keeps prompting me to add it even though I've already entered the backup key. The process of granting one client through another has never worked for me.
I completely agree. Even though it reduces security/privacy, the fact that Signal doesn't make the user think about having to deal with managing keys I think is a very user-friendly feature. iMessage does this as well for its encryption.
> The process of granting one client through another has never worked for me
I pretty much only use my security key when logging into a new client, because I have also found that process can be unreliable.