What we once had (at the height of the XMPP era of the Internet)
Summary
Noah Petherbridge reflects on the height of the XMPP era and contrasts it with Matrix as a decentralized chat platform. He recalls how XMPP enabled cross service interoperability, including bridges to Google Talk, Facebook Messenger, AIM and MSN, and notes how Openfire offered a simple self-hosted experience. He explains Matrix self-hosting struggles, including the heavy resource demands to federate with matrix.org, and argues that XMPP is no longer widely used, while expressing optimism for the Fediverse and ActivityPub as a path to a more open Internet.