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Comment by a3_nm | Hacker News Reader

> a lot of us look at our email inboxes these days and notice that most of what's in there is automated transactional stuff, with occasional cold inbound introductions that quickly transition off into some better medium

Just wanted to point out: that's certainly not true for everyone. The overwhelming majority of my work communication is done by email, and an important part of my social communication with friends and family also is. Yes, even with long-time colleagues and friends. Not everyone is using, or wants to use, other messaging applications.

> It's that we should stop using email pretty much altogether.

Is there another communication system that is decentralized (no single point of failure, no central place where people have to register, I can run my own server and customize the client), and is also widely used?

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>Just wanted to point out: that's certainly not true for everyone.

Very true. I use email for almost all my communication. It's not because I refuse to use anything else. I'm very much open to better solutions. But messengers linked to phone numbers can never be that solution for me.

Phone numbers come with way too many strings attached. They are country specifc. They can only be linked to one SIM card and one device at a time and that is almost never the device I want to use for written communication. They are subject to onerous contractual agreements and restrictions imposed by phone companies. By default, they allow everyone to call me. I don't usually want to be called on the phone.

>Is there another communication system that is decentralized (...), and is also widely used?

XMPP, maybe?

In rhe Eastern Europe XMPP is widely used for online drug purchases, even widely than telegram, which unlike XMPP requires burner phone to register.

Is this an argument against any decentralized communications?

No, just an interesting tidbit of information regarding XMPP.

Thanks for sharing, that's quite interesting IMO.

I don't see it as a knock against XMPP, just an interesting tidbit of information and an example of a wide-spread use case.

Moral opposition to drug use is irrelevant here, people want to get high and will find ways to do so, I think the usage of XMPP in Eastern Europe is a great example of why cryptography is important, and why everyone should have access to encryption.

The fact that telegram is used in Eastern Europe for drug purchases is very interesting as well.

It's a good thing people know how to use XMPP and can use it at will for anything they wish, including online drug purchases. Which are going to happen regardless of moral opposition, encryption centralization/decentralization, etc.

Like it or not it's a valid use case.

I'd argue matrix.org is a good contender for that space, federated, selfhosted and steadily growing, with megolm for end to end encryption (based on signal axolotl whatever the name is).

Not specifically to you, but want to point out that you cannot have secure + decentralized + anonymous without being subject to poisoning attacks.

And "secure" is only relative to "convenient" for the most part. Most people will sacrifice the former for the latter.

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