hwbehrens

From my perspective, the biggest differentiator is that Matrix allows users to remove the centralized coordinator from their chat provider. That is, I can run my own Matrix server, where my users can chat with each other, without any interaction with Element.io or other operator. All other major providers (Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc) all rely on a single operator to coordinate the system.

Of course, it's still useful to be able to chat with people without accounts on your private server, which is why the federation is still important. You can link up with broader networks, but you're not reliant on them.

Why this might matter is because if e.g. the UK government compels WhatsApp to implement a backdoor, as an end user I would never know. But, as someone operating entirely outside of the UK, they have no standing to compel me as a private person to implement a backdoor in my own deployment (or at the worst, at least I would know if it occurred).

Think of it as the chat analog to running your own mail server. Does everyone need to run your own mailserver? No. But if we'd started with a siloed system in email, we'd probably still be sending emails only to people with our same TLDs to this day.

> Without advocacy, conferences, documentation and tutorials, Matrix would become a niche protocol used by a few enthusiasts for side projects, whilst big proprietary and siloed networks continue to hold the world’s communications.

Advocacy and conferences aren't going to move the needle on mainstream adoption; those methods almost by definition are targeting the enthusiast crowd. In my view, the only factor that matters to attracting users is UI/UX. Streamlining the user's experience will do more for user adoption than any number of bridges.

It's possible that growing the community is the primary goal of Element.io rather than the Matrix Foundation, but in that case, it seems that there is a tension between the goals of the foundation vs Element. I'd like to understand the breakdown between the responsibilities of the foundation vs Element more clearly.

I partially agree, and I'm generally in favor of doing our part to help dang and keep the level of conversation high. With that being said, I read the parent post slightly differently.

I took their post as an implicit request that commenters share their own experiences and how they receive value from these services. A bit like the nuance between the statements "This is pointless" vs "I don't see the point", where the latter has something of an implicit (yet).

From my reading (IANAL), there are three types of occupational fraud: asset misappropriation, corruption, and financial statement fraud. Since job posting are interpreted as a positive signal but are not (it seems) typically and explicitly included in formal financial statements, this wouldn't rise to the level of criminal fraud.

> There are obviously still people working in German law enforcement today, who think that harassing a node-operator NGO would somehow lead to the de-anonymization of individual tor users.

This is not why.

> As a consequence, I am personally no longer willing to provide my personal address&office-space as registered address for our non-profit/NGO as long as we risk more raids by running exit nodes.

This is why. It's basically a textbook example of a chilling effect.

This is a "modest proposal" for sure. No legitimate thrust toward domestication would cherry pick such an esoteric example as "threading wires in automobile manufacturing facilities".

Take the (very real) fox domestication as a counterexample -- the topline takeaway is about how cute and cuddly they became. A smart and cuddly pet would be a believable pitch, but a helpful, even productive "human assistant" is far less so.

With that said, there are raccoon breeders out there (according to Google), so this proposal might be 25-50 years too early, eventually ending up like chinchillas or other small, exotic mammals.

Historically, Google has served as the fallback for pretty poor performance from Siri on knowledge tasks, which to this day often falls back to web search results.

But, if Bing (especially circa 2016) were that search provider, it would lead to confusion all the way down. It's bad enough not to receive an answer from your first attempt, but it's much worse not to be able to receive an answer at all.

The payments were certainly a sweetener to discourage exploring (or incubating) alternatives, but I agree with the article that I don't think they could have dumped or replaced Google at that time, even without the payments.

Given a broader shift from search engines to "knowledge engines" or however they're branded these days (which, in fairness, probably drew some inspiration from Google's Knowledge Graph), I think that Apple's options are wider these days.

Truly, dang is the "secret sauce" in maintaining the HN ethos. It certainly helps that the commenters do their part to reflect the ecosystem that they want, but it's easy to underestimate the important role that even a little guidance/nudging plays in making that happen.

Thanks for the recommendations! I checked them both out, but for me iTerm is still a better fit. I think of my Mac terminal as my viewer into the lower level, and not as the lower level, and the batteries-included approach that iTerm takes (e.g. having a UI for manipulating the settings file) is better aligned with that view.

FWIW, they both seem extremely performant and would probably be a great fit if I daily-drove Linux.

> the attitude of the developer in the response has certainly convinced me to never become one

If you are a Mac user and not using (or at least considering) iTerm2, you are doing yourself a disservice. It is by far the best terminal emulator available and runs circles around the built-in option.

If you are a not a Mac user, then the entire discussion is moot either way.

What is the expectation here? That the companies would refuse to comply with an (apparently legal) governmental information request? What justification would they use?

Wire and especially Proton seem to have gone to the limits of their ability to enable their users to be anonymous, and the weak link was the user's own inclusion of the recovery address.

Obviously Apple (and Google, and Meta, and Microsoft, etc) will have more information about their users, but I don't think it's a common expectation that those kinds of services are anonymous.

If we're unhappy with the outcome here, I think it's a legislative question, not a technical one.