I do run an xmpp server and use the Conversations app on Android (which is an app that every other messaging app should look at, it's just perfect).
It definitely got much better but and is heading in the right direction, but to convince people to move over it needs to be really easy. That's the one thing that apps like whatsapp, signal or telegram provides, it's easy.
Setting up a feature-full XMPP server is not that hard, but requires a good amount of admin still. Understanding the impact of choosing a client over another requires to have some basic knowledge of the protocol itself. For example, which XEP is supported by the client and the server.
I do get that the extensibility of the protocol is really powerful, but it's also its weakness in my opinion, adding a complexity that is hard to understand for non tech users.
Agreed conversations is a great client! Speaking of which, are you aware the maintainers of conversations.im have paid offers for hosting your own domains? There's also other similar offers from different providers. Is that a step in the right direction in your view?
> That's the one thing that apps like whatsapp, signal or telegram provides, it's easy.
There's also the Snikket.org project which operates on an invitation principle (small server model). Any user on the server can send invites for new users, and they just click a few links to get started. Once again, feedback is welcome.
> Understanding the impact of choosing a client over another requires to have some basic knowledge of the protocol itself.
That's a big problem and that's actually one of the reasons we started the joinjabber.org project, to help people choose a server/client. Let us know if something is not clear or can be improved on there.
Also worth mentioning, the Snikket project friendly-forks a bunch of clients to provide a consistent featureset/experience across platforms, as explained here: https://snikket.org/blog/products-vs-protocols/
Definitely what Conversations author is doing is a big step in the right direction. I managed to convert some friend and one of my sibling to it.
In term of paid offer for server hosting, I struggle a bit to see who's the target. I would expect that tech enthusiasts who really care about Internet's freedom as a whole to already have some level of self-hosting and knowledge to setup their own server (that's what I'm doing)
Non tech users will not really expect to have to pay for a server, I think that most of them would only think of Instant messaging as the client app (a bit like for email).
Maybe I'm saying crap because my knowledge of XMPP is very limited, but I would think that for XMPP to take on in the instant messaging space, it means that the protocol itself has to be focused on that. From there some form of versioning of the protocol that could mean that for a server or a client to be considered compatible with a version of the protocol, it needs to support a set of versioned XEP.
I think that would make things easier for a people who are writing XMPP app to focus on a common set of goals.
> In term of paid offer for server hosting, I struggle a bit to see who's the target.
To be honest, me too. But hosted versions of free-software are often popular, if only to support financially the maintainers. For example, the wallabag.it maintainer had a blogpost detailing his revenues over the past years running such hosting service: https://nicolas.loeuillet.org/billets/quatre-annees-de-walla... (in french but you can probably understand the numbers)
Although there is demand for collaboration services from non-profits and coops who often rely on Google services. Those who have a somewhat-techie person on board usually selfhost with Yunohost (at least in the french-speaking world where it has become popular) but others pay for external services from a tech coop (eg. webarch.coop). In this usecase, "clients" usually don't want to deal with a bunch of subscriptions from various provider and will go with someone who can do web/email/IM (at least).
Then there's the compliance suites, published every year (for 3 years now i believe) to document the required/recommended specifications to implement for specific use-cases (eg. web client, audio/video, etc). The latest one is here: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0443.html
Overall the ecosystem is progressing better/faster than it was a decade ago. But new suggestions/critique are always welcome to keep improving things :)
EDIT: I should also mention modernxmpp.org project which is useful for developing clients nowadays.
It definitely got much better but and is heading in the right direction, but to convince people to move over it needs to be really easy. That's the one thing that apps like whatsapp, signal or telegram provides, it's easy.
Setting up a feature-full XMPP server is not that hard, but requires a good amount of admin still. Understanding the impact of choosing a client over another requires to have some basic knowledge of the protocol itself. For example, which XEP is supported by the client and the server.
I do get that the extensibility of the protocol is really powerful, but it's also its weakness in my opinion, adding a complexity that is hard to understand for non tech users.