[HN Gopher] Matrix: Third Room Tech Preview [video]
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Matrix: Third Room Tech Preview [video]
 
Author : todsacerdoti
Score  : 20 points
Date   : 2022-09-28 21:47 UTC (1 hours ago)
 
web link (matrix.org)
w3m dump (matrix.org)
 
| Gigachad wrote:
| I love Matrix but it's really weird that they are spending time
| building a metaverse when there is still a lot to be desired in
| the plain instant messaging side. The server is still fairly slow
| even on their paid hosting plans, and stickers have been left in
| a half complete state for years now.
 
  | jeroenhd wrote:
  | I don't think it's much of a metaverse competitor to be honest.
  | I think they're just really happy with their federated message
  | multi-receiver message exchange protocol and are experimenting
  | with software that go beyond your standard messenger.
  | 
  | There's not a lot features and popularity to be gained over
  | more mature messengers. You need killer features to get out
  | into the market. For Signal that's privacy, for Telegram it's
  | UX, for Line/WhatsApp/WeChat it's omnipresence in certain
  | areas, for iMessage it's preinstalled vendor-lock-in, for SMS
  | it's "works everywhere". Even email can be used as a chat app
  | these days (DeltaChat uses it as a protocol for their
  | messenger, I believe) so what's the point of trying to get into
  | the messenger market?
  | 
  | So far, the places I've seen Matrix get popular are mostly
  | among researchers/tech enthusiast spaces and open source
  | products that needed something that was better than IRC but
  | self-hostable enough. That's not a market with a lot of
  | potential.
  | 
  | I see some real advantages to some of these experiments.
  | Stuffing collaborative document editing into a federated
  | protocol like this is quite interesting, for example,
  | especially combined with some ACLs. It's not something that
  | many other protocols are well suited for and it might just
  | prevent Element from fading away into obscurity like XMPP.
 
  | Spunkie wrote:
  | It seems to me matrix wants to encompass all forms of
  | communication, vrchat being one of those.
  | 
  | The marketing about it being a "metaverse" seems misplaced even
  | if its technically true or not.
 
  | Arathorn wrote:
  | We tried to explain in the main https://thirdroom.io/preview
  | blog that TR is a tiny team of three people who are driven by
  | 3D and probably wouldn't otherwise be working on Matrix...
  | while the rest of the Matrix core team is way bigger and
  | frantically working away improving the core protocol and
  | reference implementations, which are actually getting way
  | better.
  | 
  | https://matrix.org/blog/2022/08/15/the-matrix-summer-special...
  | is a recent overview of all the perf and reliability work going
  | on there.
  | 
  | Meanwhile, TR is genuinely groundbreaking (i get 120fps
  | fullscreen on my MBP in Chrome, which blows my mind), quite
  | aside from the fact it doesn't require any infrastructure
  | beyond a normal Matrix homeserver. So please don't throw the
  | baby out with the bathwater!
 
| j3s wrote:
| part of me wishes the matrix folks would give their core software
| more love instead of embarking on side projects. basic things
| that have been missing for years include:                  -
| custom emojis        -  easy to use moderation tools        - an
| admin dashboard        - databases that don't grow to 200+GB and
| require strange manual compression        - message edits sending
| notifications
| 
| i'm a matrix user & really want the ecosystem to succeed, but
| helping operate cyberia.club's matrix system been expensive, to
| say the least.
| 
| the shining light that i see in the distance is basically an
| open, federated Discord. but the more p2p and metaverse centric
| matrix gets, the less hope i tend to have for its future. it
| might be hard to stay away from that now, given their backers[1].
| 
| i hope i'm wrong!! trying to stay positive. matrix is still great
| software, and it has served us well.
| 
| [1]: https://venturebeat.com/data-infrastructure/element-
| bolsters...
 
  | mccorrinall wrote:
  | Try cinny.in
  | 
  | It's much better than element. It implements stickers, custom
  | emojis and just feels much better than element.
 
  | Arathorn wrote:
  | at the risk of repeating my other comment, we are doing a tonne
  | of work to improve core Matrix. Third Room is a totally
  | different and much smaller team.
  | https://matrix.org/blog/2022/08/15/the-matrix-summer-special...
  | details some of the ongoing work; and selfserve moderation is
  | coming soon, as are custom emoji (which exists as a Matrix
  | proposal, and many clients already implement it - just not
  | Element yet).
  | 
  | Unsure which of Element's investors you think would be pushing
  | Matrix towards virtual worlds - both Protocol Labs and
  | Metaplanet are looking on with interest, but I'm afraid the
  | push to build out richer-than-chat comms on Matrix is all me &
  | my cofounder Amandine rather than driven by them!
 
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