I deleted it as I was anticipating exactly such replies that just tell me all the ways in which I'm wrong and just make me feel dumb for voicing an opinion, and I realize I don't enjoy these kind of discussions anymore. It was up for like 3 minutes before I realized my mistake, sorry about deleting it I guess.
Don't take it too personally, they seem to be speaking from some automatic playbook.
I run indie conferences for a living [0]. From 2020 - 2023 we gave Matrix a serious shot: enough to risk losing audience members who found the UX unbearable. Then a third of my ticket holders threatened to leave if we kept using it. I was forced to drop it [1].
This year, I’m self-hosting Revolt, a lightweight Discord clone. Unlike Matrix my community's actually loving it. If Matrix leadership is reading this, take heed.
I'm not speaking from a playbook. Sorry that Element worked out so badly for you. Other conferences like FOSDEM seem to be pretty happy with it. If you don't need encryption, decentralisation, or an open standard, then Revolt looks like a reasonable FOSS Discord clone.
Glad you're not using any playbook. The commenter above us represents a growing sentiment worth considering. In my opinion, placating every negative feedback might backfire.
I'm trying to agree with the negative points (e.g. I fully agree that Element UX has historically been below par, hence all the work around Element X; elsewhere in the thread you can also see me agreeing about current & historical problems).
I'm not trying to dismiss them, but just explain that a) we did listen, b) we are listening, c) we're trying to fix it. Fwiw https://youtu.be/gHyHO3xPfQU?t=497 showcases what we've been doing. Perhaps I should leave all the "Matrix sucks" feedback unchallenged, but i'm trying to stand up for the work we've been doing to fix it.
