I'm actually not opposed to xmpp! I think its actually pretty cool! I do, however, prefer matrix over xmpp, but its very much my own personal preference, and not because one is superior to the other. In fact, i love that matrix.org has a brief, little snippet around this topic: https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-difference-between-matri...
I like the matrix approach of having all features included in the core protocol, instead of xmpp's approach of leveraging extensions...whicuh again is not bad, its simply what i prefer. also i favor matrix's bridging approach, though it has its flaws (for now). Of course, time will tell...and ultimately i favor any technology that empowers users with more privacy and security, and liberty (through choice as well as open sourceness).
Matrix is pretty popular so now it doesn’t make sense not to use that over XMPP. My Q would be why XMPP over Matrix when Matrix is working great in recent times.
Is it that popular? If any provider like WhatsApp decided were to federate (I assume the goal is to get existing providers to federate and not convince every single person of your new protocol) it would essentially make Matrix irrelevant.
And I don't see WhatsApp adopting a custom protocol like Matrix, especially since they already run on fork of ejabberd and XMPP is the established IETF internet standard. The same thing applies to Google, Facebook, Zoom, Jitsi, etc. which all use or have XMPP experience for their chat products.
Some of these have changed their Code so much in relation to XMPP, I’m not sure how much it matter that they use it. FBM never could do XMPP group chats. Not once in its dozen+ year life.
Google and FB purposefully removed federation, so it doesn’t make sense for either of them to add it. So WhatsApp is out.
—
I wasn’t saying WhatsApp or any chat app specifically should implement Matrix natively. I don’t trust big tech. I am saying, Matrix works well enough and isn’t dependent on the whims of big tech.
