Why is #Matrix so bad?

I really want to love Matrix, but it's terrible. Let's not get into that it's more #IRC than Discord, and there's a reason why #Discord, despite its drawbacks managed to get such a big mind share, that's beside the point, but relevant and we'll come back to how.

Many different things I have installed offer instant messages as a way to follow communities, get support, etc and I really don't wanna use something I use personally or I have issues with due to whatever corporate fuckeries they undertake. This means I generally want to avoid #Telegram, #Signal or #Discord.

As a result, I ended up leaning into using a Matrix. It feels like the best of the rest and that's because it's lead by a bunch of old men who don't understand why people prefer Discord over IRC.

Anyway, what made me really commit was that I finally found a client that could do multiple accounts. So I had #Faraday installed and though a bit temperamental, things were working fine.

One month ago, Faraday updated, because it's forked from an old version of #Schildichat and shit was outdated. So after some prompting the developer updated it a bit. It broke the client completely and wouldn't open. I impatiently waited and one month later a new update was released that still never fixed my issue. I thought, no way can the developer and #FDroid be that collectively incompetent, which means it's probably on my end. So I cleared storage on my other phone and the app opened. Hooray!

So I ran to my main phone and reset storage. Finally Faraday opened and then it began… Or didn't. Because once I logged in and it crashed, as it does, it was stuck on the Initial Sync, waiting for a server response. I didn't wanna be impatient, so I waited and waited and waited and nothing changed. Clear cache, clear storage, uninstall and reinstall, nothing changed.

So I'm thinking something has to be wrong, so eventually I said let me check with a stock app, so I grab #ElementX and log in and suddenly I get this stuff about authentication and I'm like WTF?

Now I swear down. I hate #privacy zealots. If you work in software, get them away from your decision making process. I don't dispute they have valuable input, but it's at the cost of the end product, every single time.

So I'm there trying to authenticate a device and I'm stressing because I just want all my old chats back. These aren't even private chats, they're public chats. I just don't wanna have to go hunting down room addresses again. But Matrix is making this harder than it needs to be and seem scarier than it needs to be.

In the end I realised that I didn't have another device to authenticate me and I didn't have the encryption codes saved. I ended up trying to circumvent it by using a web based client, which didn't work. And after some anxiety, I said fuck it and reset and then I'm finally in and find all chats preserved. But now at the bottom of all the rooms it says it's not encrypted and I'm like, fuck!

Turns out this has nothing to do with the encryption before. I found this out later. Anyway, so I'm trying to authenticate Element X using the browser and that refuses to work, because switching screens is bad, so I'm forced to use two devices. Give me strength! And then hilariously the Element X doesn't want to authenticate anything else. Yay, you're useful.

So my question is, when all these old arse developers who have clearly dreamed the same dream for fifty years were sitting around, why didn't anyone ask why it needed to be so hard. Secret agents are using Signal not Matrix. Even if you were adamant, why couldn't you just use a #TOTP? Problem solved, less friction. Why_can't_you_just_be_normal.gif

Anyway, now that I'm back in, I try Faraday again and it's still not working. I'm forced to give it up, I actually didn't mind the #UX and the icon is better than Schildichat. So I search for a new client with multi account support and the only choices are cross platform clients, ugh. I end up going with #FluffyChat and the UX isn't great, which is part and parcel of anything developed to run across platforms. I would rather something someone made for Android with love and understanding every time. But alas.

Even then, I had to log into the web to authenticate, because for some reason we can't just have a #2FA TOTP pop-up. Ugh!

Oh and the mind share thing was because they were targeting modern needs as opposed to trying to recreate an out of favour platform or bury people with terrible UX.