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1. Embed this notice
   Robin Riley (fka Josh) (josh@josh.tel)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 05:20:19 JST Robin Riley (fka Josh)

   *taps the sign*

   Choosing to host a community on a "free" proprietary platform offered by a for-profit is choosing short term ease and long term pain, and often comes at the expense of privacy. These tools _will_ get shitty and extractive. And what then?

   Community migrations are painful and lossy.

   We must select tools for our community while considering a time horizon longer than the economic boom/bust cycle.

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 05:20:17 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     Which is why my lab runs our own Matrix. I just wish we could do it without all the eyerolls over UX.

   • Embed this notice
     Robin Riley (fka Josh) (josh@josh.tel)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 05:20:19 JST Robin Riley (fka Josh)

     in reply to

     As always, it's tradeoffs all the way down. There is no single correct answer.

     When I think about Discord, which seems to be the thing as Slack has gotten shittier with people:

     Yeah probably fine for a small group who understand the privacy tradeoffs. But for a public community that one hopes to grow and nurture over the course of many years? Nope nope nope.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 07:24:11 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     +1
     always look beyond the honey bait, and envision how shitty it could get, because it probably will, when it's the hardest for you to quit
     https://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/#Unshittify
   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 08:35:27 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     I got so lost in Zulip but have encountered serious true believers in the hacker class

     Reminder that UX is relative

   • Embed this notice
     benjamin melançon (mlncn@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 08:35:28 JST benjamin melançon

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider
     • Zulip
     • Jeff Triplett

     @webology

     @ntnsndr

     give @zulip a try! Much better UX than Slack or Discord in my opinion

   • Embed this notice
     Jeff Triplett (webology@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 08:35:29 JST Jeff Triplett

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider

     @ntnsndr I have never tried Matrix, but I have yet to use a non-proprietary platform whose UX wasn't hot garbage.

     I'm not a fan of Discord and Slack, but I have to log into them every day for a few dozen orgs that are firmly there.

     I welcome a good, open platform whose UX is not hot garbage. (I am not sure we are there yet.)

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 08:47:25 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     Yeah. I mean, I think Matrix Spaces are a much better foundational primitive for grouping collaboration than Slack or Discord "servers."

   • Embed this notice
     Robin Riley (fka Josh) (josh@josh.tel)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 08:47:26 JST Robin Riley (fka Josh)

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider

     @ntnsndr Yeah, the ecosystem definitely has some work to do on the UX front!

     As someone wiser than me recently said, in many categories proprietary tools have largely plateaued and their "innovation" now is typically for the benefit of shareholders rather than end users... so now is the time for FOSS to finally catch up.