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Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

> Nobody needs a messenger that isn't encrypted.

Businesses want to analyze internal company messages. Chat protocols / platforms need to make inroads with one of the core audiences for online chat. Those are largely taken right now, (slack/teams business, discord gaming/oss). If it is personal/small group messaging, several E2EE options already exist, though I understand Jabber/XMPP is trying to be in the chatroom genre

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You can do E2E encryption for organizations, you just establish all conversations as at least 3-way conversations: the two members of the org, and the org itself. You let the server refuse to host any conversation it isn't privy to, and then apps that support organization mode automatically add the org listener, and users using third-party clients can add it manually.

The org can just host non-E2EE XMPP, and it'd be the same as this wrt trust, easier to implement too.

E2EE has well known issues for scaling, which is why it's found primarily in small group / personal chat

There is literally nothing about enterprise inspecting proxies that requires the client operate without default and always on crypto. That makes no sense at all.

The way businesses handle this is by installing a certificate they manage and deploy to their proxies.

one does not typically do data science on message content by capturing it at the proxy, go to the database and dump the data set

Not every messenger needs to support every use case

you'll need one major group if traction is the goal, which seems to be what the posted link is really after

chat is network effect, so a chat app needs to answer "which network of people" if the creators about traction?

True, segmentation is already happening with users choosing apps based on geography, age, and sometimes by social group. It’s possible to target and win over a select group of people if you have a compelling feature or an experience that’s geared towards their needs. You just have to decide who you are focusing on.

I can easily imagine a future where people switch between three messengers, one for general communications with acquaintances and family, one for work, and one for their social circle. Many already do this with social networks.

text, slack, discord for those three already (for me); none were my choice, unlikely I would chose any of them given better options, yay capitalism!

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