I don’t really like discord, but my gaming group have been using it for rpg stuff. Chat channels, video calls and easy to setup bots have all been really useful.
But I get the feeling the enshitification is going to get worse, so I was looking for somewhere else to migrate to. The video stuff isn’t as important, we could switch easily to other services. But before I start a new campaign, and spend time setting up bots with routines for rolling dice and calculating tables, I’d like to do it somewhere that isn’t in talks for an IPO.
I’m not really up on stuff like this, so I don’t know if there’s some obvious similar choices or an alternative medium that I haven’t considered.
Matrix. But if you want something that looks and feels exactly like Discord, there is Revolt. It’s FOSS.
https://revolt.chat/
If only revolt added federation. Then I’d be behind it 100%
In the FAQ, they state that federation is not in their roadmap, but if someone can do it, then they are willing to merge it. Since Revolt is written in Rust, we can use Lemmy devs’ activitypub federation crate. I might take a look at it someday.
I’ve even thought about it, but I don’t know rust and right now just don’t have the time, but it seems like it’d be fairly simple. Matrix and revolt have a lot in common, it’s just translating between the two
Oh no like I meant using ActivityPub to federate between different Revolt instances or even other future software that might be an alternative to Discord and is federated using ActivityPub.
Oh, yeah no activitypub isn’t meant for private messaging. It’s great for things like mastodon and lemmy, but there is zero privacy, it’s meant to blast out to anyone who wants to listen. Messaging the best standards right now are Matrix and XMPP.
Well yeah. Revolt is not really E2EE (yet), so it doesn’t matter. And it is not impossible to build a private messaging app with ActivityPub, see sup from the dev of Pixelfed. It also seems like some people are trying to get E2EE encrypted DMs in Fediverse to be a thing: https://wedistribute.org/2024/05/encrypted-dms-activitypub/
Yes, but if you need a truck, use a truck. If you need a car, use a car. They both do similar things, but the reason it’s taking a while for that stuff is because the protocol was not built for that in mind. They’re two different use cases. You’re not the first to have the idea here, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. Use each protocol for what they’re good at. ActivityPub was designed to be a great social network protocol. Matrix and XMPP were both built to be great secure messaging protocols. Trying to shoehorn either one into a use case it wasn’t meant to be results in a subpar experience.
What would be neat is if the Lemmy Client added a messaging protocol with it, so it could be both a matrix and a lemmy server. Each user gets their own Matrix handle out of the gate, so DMs are actually Matrix DMs. Then you could also open any matrix client with it too. The clients I have no problem with them being dual purpose, the protocols though, those are very specific.
Okay, yes, I agree. But it wouldn’t really hurt to do so, would it?
The idea of adding a matrix compatible messaging protocol to Lemmy seems too complex and unnecessary to me. Just use some matrix client at that point?