• Helix
    6·
    3 years ago

    This is a moot idea, when Element is not usable for people who can barely type a message and need an app for everything.

    The registration process with more than “enter the code you got via SMS” is way too hard. People not literate with computers, of which there are about 95% compared to “us” literates¹, may understand the notion of “apps” and “services”.

    The concepts of “accounts” and “registration” got watered down by popular apps that the law of familiarity of UX hinders adoption of nerd messengers like Matrix/Element or even the much simpler Matrix/Fluffychat. No matter how much we try to explain stuff to people, nerd tech is always way too hard to use.

    The amount of time you spend into trying to convince people to use tech which is way too hard to use for them could be used to make the transition to that tech easier instead.

    [1] discussed on lemmy here

    • xarvos
      4·
      3 years ago

      There are several other concerns than ease of use. For example:

      • Not enough people on there
        • Also, not enough interesting content in case of social network
      • Low disk space
      • Too many accounts already
      • Don’t know which instance or client to choose (though this can be argued as a subreason of ease of use)
      • Halce
        3·
        3 years ago

        Matrix is more a real-time chat solution, not a social network per-se. For social network community building ActivityPub is a much better (and not a competing) use-case.

        • Helix
          21·
          3 years ago

          Matrix is more a real-time chat solution, not a social network per-se.

          I didn’t say that anywhere, did you reply to the wrong comment?

        • xarvos
          1·
          3 years ago

          These reasons apply for both. Social network has an extra point because it’s public.

      • Helix
        3·
        3 years ago

        Not enough people on there

        That’s mostly true in a social circle kind of way, but not in general. Millions of people use it. But there are actually dozens of us. Dozens! ;)

        Low disk space

        Please elaborate.

        Too many accounts already

        Not enough or too many?

        Don’t know which instance or client to choose (though this can be argued as a subreason of ease of use)

        Yes, that’s basically part of my point, too :)

          • Helix
            4·
            3 years ago

            It is the list of excuses that people use to give.

            Most of them are created artificially for anything new.

            Very good point. People like to make excuses because they don’t like change. It’s as simple as that.

        • xarvos
          2·
          3 years ago

          Millions of people use it.

          But if they’re not your friends, it doesn’t matter.

          Low disk space

          Please elaborate

          Many people still use low end phones with limited storage and installing an extra app just to talk to you (see point 1) is wasting it.

          Not enough or too many

          I mean the individual has too many accounts (for many services), not the network. Creating yet another account just to talk to you (see point 1) is not worth the struggle.

      • Helix
        3·
        3 years ago

        Using SSO you don’t need deep registration process.

        The same that SMS but with an EMail link could work.

        Yeah, but as far as I know, not a single Matrix.org identity provider allows registration with only a phone number.

          • Helix
            21·
            3 years ago

            I hope that never exists to be exact 😂.

            I don’t. I wouldn’t ever use it, of course, but if it allows more people access to encrypted and federated communication, I’d welcome phone number identities. There are several reasons most other mainstream messengers (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal) work that way.

            Many people are too computer illiterate to use anything else but their phones. Many people don’t even get the concept of “registration” anymore. And they don’t care about privacy.

            It’s easier to educate people when you can actually talk/write to them.

            • PuaNaniOP
              2·
              3 years ago

              [Matrix] used to allow phone number registration when it was called riot.im i believe. They removed that feature. Anyone know why?