There’s been quite a bit of…unsettlement (totally a word) regarding the news that Discord has a new CEO and the company is going public (typically a sign of things going shittier than before).
I’d just like to re-post this which I shared some time ago, if you’ll indulge me in my rare post which isn’t a Steam Deck / Gaming News # post - a rarity for me.
In the end, this is not the be-all-and-end-all alternative, it won’t be for everyone. Matrix exists of course. But this is a nice place. And I thought considering recent events I’d recommend it regardless!
Following is just a copy of what I posted last time. It’s mostly Linux chat, gaming, handhelds (like the Steam Deck), movies and…general chats. Anyway, here’s the post:
So…this one is a bit left-of-field.
A friend of mine (Gardiner Bryant of YouTube - who reports on Linux and the Steam Deck) has started a Revolt server.
What is Revolt?
It’s kinda like a FOSS alternative to Discord. You’ll see the layout is almost a direct copy, and it’s far less polished…but then again you haven’t got the downsides of Discord’s constant upselling either:
Why is this relevant?
…I can hear you ask? Well, so far its just a few developers and creators in there, but I thought of all spaces…maybe those very devs and creators whose work you use and watch…well it might be nice to join in there?
My personal friends who are in here so far are:
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imLinguin whose GitHub is here - but you may know most as a developer of Heroic Games Launcher
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Lazorne whose project is RetroDECK - my personal fav emulation option for the Steam Deck
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Eben Bruyns whose GitHub is here - but you may know best as the dev of Junk-Store
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Kyle Gospo whose project is Bazzite
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Gardiner himself, of course whose YouTube link is here,
What is the damn link to the damn server, woman?
I mean, you will have to make an account on Revolt, but it might be interesting to some here. You’re all very welcome!
Saying that the client is FOSS, but the server is proprietary, I like saying you have a chastity belt - with a ventilation hole in the back.
You finna get effed in the a.
its kinda useless without Voice, TeamSpeak however is making excellent progress. im hoping we just gi bsck to forums and stuff like TeamSpeak and vent.
Sure! It’s great that there is other options, too. So people have options available to them if they want to explore those.
I’m not promoting this as a end-game solution to everything. It’s not even my server.
I’m just sharing this in case people who enjoy gaming and Linux and the people behind the projects, they might want to join in.
I wanna give it a go but it’s way too buggy
I just use the site, via my browser. And I’ve not had any issues! Though I’ve no idea how well the app performs
Damn, that’s… quite the line up of Steam Deck related devs, shit.
Welp, I’m convinced.
I got distracted when I started inviting people I know into the server, so…there will be more to come!
Quite frankly I find the idea positively revolting.
So why not matrix?
Is revolt federated?
No and they don’t plan to federate it. Not on their roadmap.
Further Matrix is guided by the Matrix Foundation, a non-profit group.
But I mean sure let’s just dump one for-profit app for another as if it won’t follow the same path.
I think you need to re-read my post.
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I did not say to dump one for another
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I literally mention Matrix exists
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I say this won’t be for everyone
Another reminder, this is not my server, I just thought this was fun and I’m sharing an alternative. But I’ve tried reading all I can about Revolt, and I can’t see where they say it’s “for profit”. Can you link me to that?
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It’s easier to use and more polished. Also, not federated or decentralized. Although you can self host it
Self hosting and open source to me is the most important part. Federation can come if the need arises. I was just curious.
I’m personally going to stay on my matrix channels as they seem more established. But it’s good to have options.
Right now discord seems fine but I’ve already lived through many de-platforming events. And one day it too will go the way of the dodo. People getting attached to nameless online services is funny.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, nothing else has really matched Discord’s combination of voice, video, and text chatting. Matrix doesn’t have feature parity, and doesn’t even have a functional client… Which means it’s only really viable for the people who care enough to learn how to set it up. And the average user does not care enough to learn.
I’m not sure what you mean? I have voice, video and text working on my yunohost without any real issues. My wife and I use it all the time. Element (the client) could be a bit easier def on the initial experience, but to me that’s it.
The thing discord has is the people. When discord went down a couple of weeks ago, my tiny instance quadrupled in users. And the local city specific matrix got quite a few.
But is it made in Rust ?
No?
You chaps gotta tick all the buzz-words!
I just had a dig around, the back-end is implemented in Rust.
Ah sh✫t got me!
You managed to tick the buzz word without having to make a native app for my computer.
Of course it’s made in Rust! (the backend)
I’m failing to find any info on how they are funding the servers in their website.
Well, once the service becomes large and popular we could try to find people interested in investing into the platform, then we just need to make sure it stays interesting to more and more investors over time. Should be sustainable, sounds oddly familiar tho but i definitely just made it up rn on my own
In addition to the mentions that this isn’t encrypted, doesn’t have video chat, etc, it’s also difficult to set up with little documentation and an enormous tech stack. They also had some recent controversy about open source licensing that gives me a bit of worry. I decided to go with a self-hosted synapse server.
I just went through this tree about a week ago. Downloaded the app for iOS to try it and would say it wasn’t ready for mainstream. It looks very similar to discord but it just consistently would crash or send me back to the website in order to get anything done. Even the main channel for Revolt would hang and not load properly. That and iOS is on TestFlight… not gonna work well for non tech enthusiasts who know how about it. That
I have a small server on Discord and would love to move it. But the people on it aren’t super tech savvy and the replacement will need to work. Plus, I have less desire to go from one centralized service to another, especially when the backup doesn’t work well. Wish Element would get it together with the phone app and make spaces appear as they do on the computer. That and stable call/video channels.
It would be nice to see a capable app built on matrix platform. Or just another capable platform that has a well working app. Just my two cents.
SchildiChat Next is a mini-fork of Element X with proper spaces support (and some other nice UI additions).
I say mini-fork as it’s basically just EleX with some UI patches - so it follows EleX actively.
Aaaaand this touches on the problem with matrix in general, no standard is properly followed, way too many forks with feature support all over the place
There’s only one standard, it has no forks. The discussion is about a filtering feature.
A lot of people don’t seem to respect spaces and communities - from my perspective it looks like the devs are currently pivoting to make the official client look and act more like Telegram/Signal/WhatsApp than Discord/IRC.
Your issue is that the dev team of EleX not prioritizing a feature you want.
If anything, this is a strength of an open source ecosystem: someone who agrees with you was able to, months ago, setup a fork that appeals to your work flow.
Try that with Discord, next time!
There is a single standard with no forks, I said not a single one followed. I run my own Matrix Home Server and use it frequently, there are a lot of different clients and there are a good number of them that do run their own features that are not exactly in Spec because one does not yet exist in the official spec. Stickers used to be a good example of that I remember when there were like three different clients Each of which implemented them in a different weird way until the spec finally landed on an implementation.
And even within this back there are some basic features not supported on certain clients and other such problems. I’m just saying it’s not an alternative to Discord and it will never be mainstream because it’s too confusing and frustrating from the perspective of a standard user.
Same concept that made bluesky get popular over mastodon, trying to find anything on Mastodon of interest is a chore because there’s no real Central spot to do everything the very nature of it is that it’s scattered to the winds, there’s also multiple apps available for Mobile on Mastodon Each of which have different layouts, different features, and normal people that just want to be able to find their topic of Interest can’t be bothered to deal with that
Revolt to Discord is what BlueSky is to Twitter.
Just another continuation that can (and will) enshittify.
For the record RetroDECK also got Matrix instance as well. But Revolt have so far been more active then Matrix (even tho we had that one for a long time).
But I do agree with that Discord is not a replacement for forums. You should not use Discord as your primary information hub.
For us our own wiki is the master of information. If something relevant is said in Revolt / Discord / Matrix we will add it to the wiki, people should not need to register various accounts to access the information.
Github is also where we handle “real” issues, while Discord / Matrix / Revolt is helpful for community members helping other with minor issues or general banter.
One reason why forums died out was the need for direct engagement and a sense of active community belonging, that they simply did not offer.
We also did not create all of these spaces from the beginning. Some community members did it, like the subreddit. Then you have a choice either you create it and own it, or a fan will.
I really hope indie gamedevs start moving off Discord. Sometimes it’s the only source for finding help or reporting bugs.
Yeah, and it’s doubly infuriating because Discord is not a good replacement for support forums. It isn’t searchable via search engines, and even the built in search is fucking dog water.
Let’s say I have an error, so I google “{Program} {Error code} Solved”. With a forum, I would find a thread that is already talking about the specific error, with comments regarding troubleshooting steps or a solution… But with Discord, all I get is a generic link to the program’s server.
And even once I’m in the server, there often isn’t a good way for me to find existing threads about my specific error. Maybe I check the pinned messages, but some servers have dozens of channels; am I expected to check the pins on every single channel? Oftentimes that seems to be the expectation, because asking a question will often just get a “check the pinned messages, ya thud-fuck” type of response.
Or maybe I search it, but (again) am I expected to search every single channel? And since Discord doesn’t use fuzzed searches, searching for “Error code 0x00548327” won’t return any results if the thread simply uses “Error 548327” instead. With Google (or any half-decent search engine, really) you get results for both. But not with Discord.
So instead, I ask in the support channel. And that leads me to my final gripe… My response takes actual effort from another person in order to solve. Maybe I get lucky and they have a bot set up to respond to a keyword/error number in my comment… But if not, or if I didn’t use the specific keyword that the bot was searching for, then I need to rely on other people. If there are 200 people with the same issue, that’s 200 times that someone needs to respond to what is essentially the same message. With a forum, you could simply find the post, and read the responses. No human interaction necessary, because it has already been done. The question and answer process has already happened. But with Discord, I’m forced to wait on someone to actually respond, and the devs/admins actually need to dedicate time and resources to ensuring it gets answered. That constant vigilance takes a lot more time and effort away from actual mod duties.
It’s a comically bad experience.
I get it that it’s probably easier to setup a Discord server, than to run your own forum, but you can always get a managed solution or use reddit (I would prefer if Lemmy was used, but I am also realistic).
I’m actually against companies running their own subreddits, purely because I’m an old redditor who remembers when it was specifically disallowed by Reddit. The original intent was for the site to the run by the people, not by companies. Companies were actually prevented from moderating their own subs; the worry was that they would use their mod powers to suppress any sort of negative press or criticism, no matter how valid.
For instance, maybe there’s a popular TV show. The company wasn’t allowed to have a hand in moderating the official fan sub for the show, because it was left up to the public. If the show did something unpopular, the broadcasting company shouldn’t have the ability to suppress the criticism about it.
But Reddit has since done a complete 180 on that topic, and now goes out of their way to install corporate moderators. Subs are now run as an extension of the company’s marketing and/or PR departments
Agreed. Just at this point I think it’s fair to say that this policy is definitely not in effect.
Fucking preach! I feel like this falls on deaf ears most of the time though sadly.
I normally like GitLab issues as a place for bug reports.
A FAQ and an old style forum works pretty well for help.
In fact, just make a community on Lemmy for the forum part and you’ll have what’s required.GitHub also has this new “Discussions” thing which should do some good, for those that want to stay on GitHub
Revolt isn’t federated, encrypted, has no video chat, claims privacy but that claim seems to be simply because they are based in Europe. The layout is nice and ui is better than element but that’s the only upside i see. I hate the matrix client ui’s and chat sorting options.
Exactly. I wish they would have just built a great UI on top of Matrix or even XMPP, but they insisted on doing it this way. None of my friends want to switch to something that they’re boxed-in with, they don’t want an app just for one server. Matrix is the only option we have, but all of the UIs are… meh.
Yeah, they kinda screwed up Element with combining mobile and desktop features into one app. The first time I tried creating a call on desktop, it was suddenly apparent how confusing they had made it, because you can do it in multiple ways (normal calls & conference calls).
There are other UIs that look very nice, but sadly don’t support voice chat. Hopefully these other clients can catch up, but it’ll likely take a while.
So, I briefly tried out Matrix some four years ago and left because it was utter trash and from waht I gather from your comment it is still pretty much trash now. But despite there not being a single usable client, people still try to convince everyone that Matrix, by some obscrure metric, is superior to all other chat programs.
Sorry to say, but a chat protocol on its own is a tech demo at best and as long as there isn’t a single feature complete and usable client, it’s an alternative for no one except hardcore tech enthusiasts.
When I last used Matrix/Elements I had to deal with “lost keys” issues multiple times in just two months. This issue is a dealbreaker if it happens just once in a year and apparently, it’s still a semi regular problem for some of my friends.
Just accept it, Matrix will never be a replacement for Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram or even just Microsoft Teams.
Never is a strong word. Element has made a lot of progress and I can see the potential in it to compete with some of these platforms.
But no, it’s not there yet.
I agree, I don’t think it’s trash. From my experience, chatting is very good, voice/video are just the next thing they are tackling.
Better UX will probably come after important features are done.
I didn’t mean to say that it’s (still) trash, I think it’s useable, but there are still a lot of improvements to come.
Element as a client seems to want to do everything, which is probably great for a lot of people, but it (in my experience) has led to a poor user experience (which with more time, will likely improve, they seem to have a lot of backing).
With Element completing voice/video implementation, I imagine it’ll be easier for other clients to reference their work when implementing their own support.
Once the other clients get voice support, I will definitely be trying them out again, I’m sure they will make a much simpler experience that works out the box.
The lost keys problem has luckily never happened to me, it usually boils down the user error I believe, but yeah, if it is a user error that happens often, they should figure out some way to fix that (probably a hard problem, which is sort of fixed (i believe) if you use the client on multiple devices, so if you get logged out of your account you can easily authorize your access from another logged in device, eg desktop/mobile).
Revolt hasn’t added federation because it can be a major complexity increase in the codebase, but apparently they might be allowing instance owners to integrate polyproto support (polyproto is a work-in-progress federated chat system). If you want a discord like interface for Matrix, Cinny exists. I personally prefer revolt in some ways as Matrix feels like it doesn’t fit the use case for discord as well.
Cinny hates me. Failed to load module xapp-gtk3-module and then unable to complete frame buffer.
Screenshots look nice though!
Also, revolt self hosting is broken. The web call functionality (WebRTC) is being rewritten but that effort is stale and out of the box it simply does not work. There is no real documentation about this either. It just won’t work and you need to invest a lot of effort to figure out why. The moment self hosting properly works, I’ll give it another shot. Not being able to connect without a fat client is a show stopper for me. There’s no way I can get enough traction for my groups if the barrier to switch is higher than a sheet of paper.
When self hosting all the shortcomings you mentioned are perfectly acceptable for me.
No thanks. One more centralized service to enshitify. Will stick with Matrix.
matrix is part of the police state. https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
Uhh this is a reach. By this logic so is Signal. And RedHat. Hell, even Mastodon.
sure, it’s nuanced, but imho there’s a difference between actively helping and propping up vs providing free software. when you have active contracts with entities that discriminate, it becomes a different ethical stance than simply building FOSS.
Thats fair, but simly using FOSS software doesn’t support the cause of the developers/creators. I mean, look at Lemmy.
yeah i can understand that viewpoint, and for all the matrix users i hope that remains true. maybe i’m just jaded, but i’ve been around long enough to know that just because a company isn’t a complete pile of shit now doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future—ESPECIALLY when you can see the company they keep (and defend).
I just want to make sure you notice it says “encrypted messaging” meaning matrix as a service, as opposed to “encrypted messages”, meaning selling your messages.
Just in: Orange farmers are part of the police state because they sell oranges to the government, including policemen.
there’s a subtle difference, but if i’m following your logic, then weapons manufacturers have no moral/ethical responsibility for enabling war to happen? if you made a knife—harmless on its own, and then gave the knife to a murderer who then killed someone with it, are you not enabling?
Is Ford a part of the police state because they sell cars to them?
idk what their agreement is with them, but i’d venture to guess that they’re not not complicit.
