Today I’ve donated to matrix.org and became its individual member. I wanted to share why I did that, partially for myself to compare if my reasons still hold true in the future and partially to perhaps inspire others to do the same (only if you are able to!). If you want to learn what is Matrix and why you should check it out, look at my blog post on that.
To keep it short, here is a list of reasons why I decided to yearly donate some $$ each year to Matrix.org:
- I’ve been using Matrix with my friends since 2018, I’ve been bringing my friends there to keep our communication secure and private using an instance hosted by myself. I’ve never paid for Matrix nor Matrix ever sold my private information, it’s only fair I support its development,
- I believe in Matrix’s mission statement, values that Matrix represents are compatible with mine.
- More specifically, I want to have control over where my conversations are stored, I want to have a chat platform with rules set by myself, this is especially important to me as a gay furry who enjoys adult content a lot, which in my experience is always at risk of getting banned from other (proprietary) platforms, I want to future-proof my chat platform from bans for breaking their rules on acceptable content, I also share vision of interconnected world - ability for messages to cross platforms and let everyone use what they want. EU’s DMA is a large step towards that and Matrix might be a good solution to problem of walled gardens,
- I believe in Matrix’s organization model and hope that it will result in development of chat platform I’ll want to continue using in the future, also I’ve only ever had positive experiences with its current Managing Director Josh Simmons who seems to be a great positive force in orgs he participated in (and on Fediverse),
- by donating I also support advocacy work Matrix organization is doing such as campaigning towards repealing CSA Regulation in EU,
- I’m still fairly young, and because of that many of my dear friends can only be reached via the Internet, it’s difficult to express how much a digital chat platform is important- no, essential to me,
- by becoming a member I can have the slightest ability to affect Matrix’s future with voting rights wooho, I promise that I’ll use them responsibly :)
- I can host my own little Matrix server, which my friends can use to communicate with other Matrix users on different server, I love it and I want to make sure I can keep decentralizing web this way in the future, donation helps me achieve this, especially as I plan to depart other major chat platform before this year ends and Matrix will become my main chat hub (alongside Signal).
There is one thing which this donation might not have this much of effect on that I feel is currently the biggest problem with Matrix: it likely won’t help much with client ecosystem. Sadly Matrix lacks good chat clients, and this isn’t just my opinion but opinion of many of my friends. Client ecosystem needs to grow if Matrix is to fulfill its mission. Currently my main desktop client Nheko is not taking donations, but if your favorite chat client does, please help it out!
Let’s support things we love.
