I am trying to work out the strengths and weaknesses of messaging platforms from fully decentralized to federated to centralized. I am only a user on Mastodon/activitypub and IRC, but I have in the past hosted usenet and currently host:
smtp (email)
XMPP
Matrix
SSB (Secure ScuttleButt)
SIP (fully decentralized)
The impressive feature of twitter and it's totalitarian centralized ilk is that a single id can have millions of followers - and know that. SSB supports unlimited secure (signed) broadcasting, but there is no mechanism for knowing how many followers there are. Of course, TV was in the same boat, and you could get an estimate by polling. BBC broadcasts on SSB.
Counting followers is essential for monetizing content via advertising and sponsors in a decentralized manner - i.e. not subject to cancellation at a whim by a global centralized platform.
Matrix seems ideal for many of the purposes people use Teams or Substack or Slack. Private conversations e2e encrypted, logging with controlled retention (HIPPA compliant), voice and video calls, voice and video conferencing, media. But performance of small personal servers drops with number of participants in a room - I don't think it can support a million followers.
XMPP has inconsistent state for multiple devices, and is terrible at group chats. I do use it a backup for matrix and for voice/video calls. Open XMPP clients supporting VOIP and IPv6 are easier to find than SIP clients. (And SIP is even worse at state for multiple devices.)
Usenet has no authentication (not worth tacking on GPG header schemes).
Email is not designed to be "instant" (as in IM), but can be coaxed into resembling that by clients such as DeltaChat.
Ok, so now I should make a feature matrix (which includes Matrix), but have I missed any open and federated/decentralized protocols? Any other features? Current feature list:
broadcast (million+ followers)
follower count
p2p voice/video
e2e encryption
authentication
federated
decentralized (or federated that can be practically fully decentralized, like SMTP)
Did I miss any?
@customdesigned Whilst this is all technically correct and useful, I think a bigger factor is going to be the front end for non-technical users. And that includes brands that want to have a presence and add that mode into their marketing campaigns. Lastly, sometimes a single user with high profile can bring an audience with them and dominate a particular platform, whilst remaining an average presence on others.
@davoloid Agreed. And that is a big weakness of SSB - it doesn't have the selection of robust clients like Matrix does.