Mastodawn

Sep 16, 2024

I have to express something I see in the FOSS/Linux/privacy conscious space a lot...

We often feel very STRONGLY in our philosophy and principles. And that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that...

I've expressed a growing resentment of Discord and how people shovel everything into Discord servers numerous times.

And I've gotten told "Use Matrix."

Matrix is cool. I like Matrix. This doesn't even remotely BEGIN to solve the problem. And the recommendation not only doesn't solve my problem - but actively IGNORES my problem.

I don't use Discord because I LIKE Discord. I quite honestly at this point HATE discord. I use Discord because it's *entrenched*. I have no (reasonable) choice, but to use it or cut 90% of people out of my life.

This is #CollectiveVendorLockIn and it sucks. We need SOCIETY to make better choices before I can.

...also, people underestimate strongly how user unfriendly/confusing Matrix can be - and that matters a LOT to the average person considering switching.

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Krissy Silvermoon

And for goodness sake, people, do not SHAME the user for being *stuck* with something like it's somehow their fault or they're somehow a bad person or an idiot for it.

This type of condescending and insulting rhetoric is a really horrid and ironic way to try and convince people that our software is more respectful.

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CrimsonTRP Sep 16, 2024

@christiansilvermooon Seconding this because, as a customer service specialist who has to do technical support calls every single day, the average user will literally panic in some cases because you asked them to open their settings app on their device. Usually, the first comments out of people's mouths when I ask them to do this is 'Just so you know, I'm not technically savvy.'

The bottom line is, Matrix is neat as an option, but you're absolutely right. For the average user, it is INCREDIBLY intimidating. Our answer shouldn't be 'well then they shouldn't be using x', it should be 'how do we make this more presentable?'