ZephyrXero
✧✦Catherine✦✧it's kind of unbelievable that in 2025 the "instant messaging" problem is *less* solved than it was in 2010
it's only slightly worse now than it was in 2010 but it's a living proof that investing millions of dollars and untold number of hours into trying to make something better can make no positive difference at all
do you wager my ICQ number still works?
Cassandra is only carbon now@whitequark I still have mine memorized. Not, ya know, the password. Which would be useful. Sigh.
@xgranade me too!
Simon Eilting@xgranade @whitequark I have some idea what my password might have been, and it's so embarrassing I sure hope that database is gone for good. I was 15 then...
Andrew Zonenberg@whitequark Sadly they shut the service down in 2024
@whitequark AIM went to the big bitbucket in the sky not too long before that. I was chatting with friends there until the servers went dark.
Rob\Viewdata UK
SnoopJ@whitequark uhoh.wav
Jernej Simončič �@whitequark Unfortunately ICQ shut down about a year ago.
26266467.
26266467.
Jos 🍉@whitequark I tried it a while (some years) ago, but the password didn't work and they wanted to have a whole bunch of info including phone number before they'd reset it. When I checked again fairly recently, the whole service seemed gone.
Owen Anderson@whitequark trying to m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̵s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̵b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ make something more profitable 🤮
AMS@whitequark I'm pretty sure that investment was mostly going into network capture, advertising, and EEE efforts.
@whitequark how is it less solved? we still have IRC as a stable baseline
@azonenberg good luck getting people to use IRC
Krutonium://@whitequark @azonenberg Honestly if you took IRC, added a relay, and gave it a discord-like Interface, People would use it all day long.
And you can drop the relay if you just call it an Ephemeral Chat Platform.
@krutonium @azonenberg IRCv3 is supposed to be this
@whitequark @azonenberg nod nod Honestly I think IRC suffers from an image problem.
Between the clunky clients and the flashy features it's missing (calling and so on), people don't gravitate to it.
@krutonium @azonenberg the basic feature IRC is missing (as far as I can tell) that results in me maintaining an IRC-to-Matrix bridge (which does _not_ spark joy btw) is the ability to use it from a mobile device concurrently with a desktop, including DMs
@whitequark @azonenberg Honestly that'd be the value proposition of the relay + client; The relay manages the server/account connection and the client connects to the relay.
sarah tonin 
@whitequark @krutonium @azonenberg main thing i want for community spaces is subchannels, but we can also just make another channel, it's just clunky
Martin Roukala (né Peres)@whitequark @krutonium @azonenberg Quassel proposed than 15 years ago already.
Nowadays, soju as a bouncer provides a pretty good experience on this front.
@whitequark @krutonium @azonenberg FYI, soju+goguma (android/iOS) + senpai (web client) client works well for me to have a shared backlog and notifications between devices.
F4GRX Sébastien
postweber@azonenberg @whitequark IRC is useless without a bouncer, which is quite the barrier to entry
@postweber @whitequark i have been using irc fo something like 20 years without a bouncer? An always-on desktop is perfectly adequate
Newbyte@azonenberg @postweber I do not have a desktop
infinite love ⴳ@azonenberg @postweber @whitequark it is okay to log off. you don't always have to know what was said while you were offline
@trwnh @azonenberg @postweber i don't consider it acceptable to have communication methods that can suddenly become unavailable
@trwnh @azonenberg @postweber (this is actually much more for DMs than for rooms; i run one of the oldest surviving IRC loggers so the rooms are covered, the DMs of course are not)
@whitequark @azonenberg @postweber everything can become unavailable at any time. your only real choice is whether you want to have an inbox hold your messages or not. if you don't, that's irc. if you do, that's email. everything else is basically a reinvention of one or the other. the messaging problem has been solved for a long time, the real problem is capitalism incentivizing 100 incompatible messengers because lock-in is profitable. a bouncer just turns irc into basically email
Polina@whitequark Not to mention UX and features with IRC. I think one of the problems is big eyes watching everyone in public and private chats. For mainstream, convenience wins most people I guess
groxx@whitequark for a brief, glorious moment ~20 years ago we had Pidgin/Gaim/lib{pidgin,gaim} and it worked for almost everyone
sen@groxx @whitequark I do miss the days when I could just tell someone I was 1709635 and they could reach me.
Von Xylofon@groxx @whitequark XMPP was not brilliant if you had multiple devices. That's why I switched to Matrix in 2016.
Bryan Whitehead@groxx @whitequark
I still can’t believe AOL just let AIM rot. They had built something so amazing and simply didn’t take care of it at all.
I still can’t believe AOL just let AIM rot. They had built something so amazing and simply didn’t take care of it at all.
ganjadere@whitequark many such cases
GrumpyDad 🇺🇦🇵🇸@whitequark All thanks to enshittification!
tef@whitequark What're your issues with xmpp? Other than OMEMO MUCs, experience is pretty good now for me personally
@slowfallinward i stopped using it ca. 2015 when it was a trash fire and now i don't know anybody who uses XMPP
While hibernating, SvavarHow much of this is because of the DMCA and that Apple and Google would never allow an app like Pidgin on their stores?
@whitequark @exchgr isn’t it just damned _great_ what the various walled gardens fought to make happen? :|
Martin Escardo@whitequark That's because nobody really wants to solve it. The less solved it is, the better it is for big corporations competing against each other. That's how things work in the epoch we live.
Adam DJ Brett
Jonathan Yu@whitequark Yes, but think about all the Google engineers that can get promoted by building another chat system
@jawnsy dw nobody uses those
@whitequark Yeah, but if the instant messaging problem is solved, then Googlers won't be able to justify building a new one. The point isn't for anyone to use them or for them to have a meaningful business impact for Google, the point is only for ambitious employees to justify a promotion, as far as I can tell
Jak2k ✆9000@39c3@whitequark I think the biggest problem are clients and encryption. We do have some good protocols.
Kevin Karhan 
@jak2k @whitequark I mean, they do exist.
@gajim & @monocles / #monoclesChat do it for me but for some @delta or @zulip may be a better option...
monocles@monocles @kkarhan Oops! I didn't notice you were mentioned.
Clicking links doesn't work very often, I can "archive" chats but there is no section for archived chats, swiping to reply feels very unnatural compared to other apps (like Signal), webxdc cannot be received when encrypted, clicking a user in the participant list mentioned them instead of opening their contact detail page (which is very unexpected), users who left a room are still listed,
(1/x)
@monocles @kkarhan the status message is edited in account details (which most normal users will never enter), it is very easy to accidentally disable encryption, I can't see what I'm typing when sending an image but the text is still there and send and the UI is very inconsistent.
The app is usable but not really recommendable to people who are not nerds. And that's sad because XMPP is really cool.
(2/2)
Kenny@kkarhan @jak2k @whitequark I sadly don't consider an IM service good if only nerds can use it. I can't really recommend something to others if no good clients for Windows, macOS and iOS exist. The XMPP story isn't great on the last two.
Delta Chat is pretty nice besides starting to chat (I can't expect grandma to figure out how to start a chat there, particularly long distance).
It seems like the only secure messaging application I can expect my family to use is Signal, which sucks.
Delta Chat is pretty nice besides starting to chat (I can't expect grandma to figure out how to start a chat there, particularly long distance).
It seems like the only secure messaging application I can expect my family to use is Signal, which sucks.
@whitequark @kbruen I had the opposite experience than @jak2k has and was able to quickly onboard "#TechIlliterates" very quickly with @monocles / #monoclesChat & @gajim but then again: Different requirements necessitate different tools…
- #PGP/MIME like with @delta / #deltaChat has the advantage that it doesn't require it's own #Server infra and since it's just #eMail can also piggyback on #archival solutions, something that @zulip / #Zulip demands a commercial subscription for.
And if your chat aims towards the #public than #IRC (quasi-synchronous) and may just be the better option...
Jak2k ✆9000@39c3 (@jak2k@mastodontech.de)
@monocles@monocles.social @kkarhan@infosec.space Oops! I didn't notice you were mentioned. Clicking links doesn't work very often, I can "archive" chats but there is no section for archived chats, swiping to reply feels very unnatural compared to other apps (like Signal), webxdc cannot be received when encrypted, clicking a user in the participant list mentioned them instead of opening their contact detail page (which is very unexpected), users who left a room are still listed, (1/x)