A Call to Arms: Supporting Matrix
(oops, the blog link melted under all the attention but it&#x27;s fixed again now).<p>Just wanted to say that of all the communities on the &#x27;net, HN has been one of the most enthusiastic about the potential of Matrix.  Trying to build an entirely open decentralised network that can support better-than-Slack style collaboration is a tonne of work; I&#x27;d estimate it&#x27;s about 6x more work than building the equivalent centralised service.  Plus the amount of effort that we&#x27;ve put into decentralised end-to-end encryption (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;matrix.org&#x2F;git&#x2F;olm&#x2F;about" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;matrix.org&#x2F;git&#x2F;olm&#x2F;about</a> etc) is <i>enormous</i>, and now very nearly complete, having got solutions in place for (optionally) sharing message history on demand between devices, handling race conditions during splitbrains, etc.<p>In short, we&#x27;ve put a lot of work into Matrix and we really want to continue doing so with at least the same level of momentum we&#x27;ve had to date.  But as of next week, this is going to require support from the community - both donations and corporate sponsorship, at least in the short&#x2F;medium term.  So if you believe in the promise of decentralisation and restoring power over communication back to the users, your support would be <i>hugely</i> appreciated.<p>Also, folks may be specifically interested in the &#x27;Reflections&#x27; section at the end of the post, which points out that in the near future Matrix is going to be forced to address an even bigger issue than open comms - namely the ability to handle propaganda and let users filter their content (to avoid spam, propaganda, abuse, etc) without being trapped in an invisible filter-bubble or echo-chamber.  This stuff is still vapourware right now, but could be literally world-changing if we get it right.<p>Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks to those who consider supporting directly.<p>-- Matthew &#x2F; Arathorn