Checking the box of ideals doesn't mean that open source software is off the hook in having to compete on features. Regular users do not give a rat's ass about source code being open; it's an extremely abstract concept if you're not in the field. All they care about is free as in beer. Matrix can either target the niche demographic of the highly technical, or it needs to level up on usability to reach a wide audience.
The number of people who have tried LibreOffice, Gimp, etc is probably orders of magnitude higher than the number of actual daily users. If these software applications were businesses, their exec teams would have been fired many times over for the atrocious churn. Free as in beer is an excellent foot in the door, but it's wasted time and again by huffy developers who don't know how to create good UX and who won't open the door to good product people who want to help out.
No one said that.
> Regular users do not give a rat's ass about source code being open
Open source or not, they should care about reliability, avoiding lock-in, abusive practices from monopolistic players, privacy...
> If these software applications were businesses, their exec teams would have been fired many times over for the atrocious churn.
If these applications were business, you'd also have to look at Cost of Customer Acquisition, at how much is being spent on marketing, you'd also have to see how much your developer team is being compensated, how much they are getting in shares, etc.
If the investment is zero, the ROI from FOSS will be by definition infinitely superior to closed solutions.
What I am trying to say is: TANSTAAFL. OP's seems to not care about his freedoms, so he is willing (like many others) to trade it away for the convenience brought by closed solutions. So it is no surprise that a FOSS project (which has no way to monetize the user to finance its development) will lag behind. This will only change when people start covering some of this difference and start supporting FOSS projects directly.
And there's your problem. Regular users do not give a rat's ass about your shoulds. In addition, for example, I've never seen any serious UX bugs in Telegram, and I've seen many in Element. Regular users care waaay more about that than some vague notion of "reliability".
They are not mine.
It's not my data that is being mined and it's not my business that can disappear if WhatsApp goes offline.
Yeah, I'm fully aware that people generally don't care about any of that. Lots of people also don't care about their eating habits, the effects of their economic actions, etc, etc. But if they don't want to face the bad consequences of their choices, they should.
But it doesn't.
Your shoulds look an awful lot like a tribal affectation which the FOSS community uses to exclude non-technical users.
It doesn't matter if the exclusion is conscious (I suspect it isn't) or deliberate (likewise.)
The point is the exclusion happens. Self-evidently and empirically. Outside of the technical community FOSS might as well not exist.
If you actually want people to use FOSS you need to stop shoulding potential users and start making software that satisfies their needs in obvious and delightful ways.
Security and privacy are important but secondary features.
And access to source code trails at the end of the list. It's of zero interest - and even less use - to non-technical users.
Sorry, that is bullshit. Any FOSS enthusiast will gladly help other people, when there is a clear path to make the change. When I told my friends and family "I am not going to use WhatsApp anymore, but there is this program that we use instead", I went to help all of them that were interested. I didn't force them to choose between Element or WhatsApp, I just said "here is one alternative."
> Just as FOSS should produce high quality, usable, popular, free software.
I can bet FOSS beats proprietary solutions on any class on a dollar-per-unit-of-quality and even dollar-per-user-acquired metric.
> If you actually want people to use FOSS you need to stop shoulding potential users and start making software that satisfies their needs in obvious and delightful ways.
Everyone wants an unicorn. No one wants to pay for it. If we want developers to work on FOSS projects, we need to foment a marketplace that rewards FOSS developers.
"Oh, but I don't care about FOSS. I care about getting things done, or less inconveniences, etc"
Fine, then enjoy your shit sandwich that is called "Big Tech".
I have no control over what others do. The only power I have is over my own choices.
> But at least you get to feel like you did the right thing, right?
I am more concerned about not doing the wrong thing (if I can avoid it) then any display of righteousness.
In the case, no one is forcing me to use WhatsApp, so if I can avoid being a participant in something that I believe to be hurtful to me and others, I will. The inconvenience is a small price to pay.
I'm not a marketing person, but for example, take advantage of these kind of events to let people know that Matrix's network is impossible to go down like this because it works like e-mail.
Reiterate the point that Whatsapp is part of Facebook's network. So, your Whatsapp account is under Facebook's control just like your Facebook account. Matrix accounts work like e-mail addresses. You choose a provider for your account, and you can always choose a different one without losing access to the network.
Present these kinds of talking points to the actual mainstream. Advertise on Youtube, go on TV... maybe people care less about the UX than we think.