Ask HN: How did you convince family and friends to join your XMPP/Matrix server?

During Iran's Internet blackout, I set up a chatmail server on an interanet VPS, installed Delta Chat's client (https://delta.chat) on every family member's phone, and they are using it even now after the Internet is back.

I have tried Matrix, XMPP (Conversations), Signal and even some Nostr clients but Delta Chat has by far the best UX and reliability. It has groups, channels and private messages, stickers and built-in video calls. My only gripe is that it doesn't have video messages or screen share like Telegram yet.

If you want to try it out you're always welcome to message me.

I manually installed Conversations.im on their phones configuring accounts, joining groups etc then on my phone I've disabled notifications on other chat apps. If they want something, XMPP is the only way to reliably reach me. Over time they grew to like it even though it's not perfect (eg. no built-in gallery or message retraction).

My advice is not specific to Matrix but other self hosted private services. Some of this may or may not be feasible with Matrix. (I have never used Matrix)

- Whether family or friends, always suggest it as a "fallback" for when "preferred service" is down and to use when discussion ultra-sensitive topics or sharing financial files. With time they may just stay connected to it if the friction to do so is low. It has to be their choice, not yours.

- What helps? Add more incentives such as perks that "preferred service" does not offer. No file size limits. No or few file type limits. No content filters. Add emoji's or gifs that align with their inside jokes and their style of humor. Keeping random people away is very important. Making your friends and family administrators or moderators and let them decide how it operates. Do not moderate or power-trip over your friends or family or they will leave. Limit rules to "Do not break the laws of this country in public chatrooms" and private chat rooms if you do not physically host the server. Database and file backups become even more important but they will feel in control of a thing. Have a keyword or code word they all learn means to go check the private platform that "primary platform" would not recognize. Maybe when they see "Turtle Farts!" they know to go log into your service.

- They may just stay on their primary preferred service. Every group is different and not every group will see the benefits of your fallback service. They may not appreciate the work you put into setting it up for them. Do not expect to get the friends of your friends and family to move to your service. They may not appreciate the OpSec value until "Bad Things"(c)™2038 happen to enough people. Just be there for when it does.

- If there are concerns that you would spy on them, consider instead using eJapperd or Prosody as you can implement OMEMO for individual and group end-to-end encrypted messages. Set up TLS fingerprint checks from multiple locations to reduce the risk of MitM attacks until XEP-0474: SASL SCRAM Downgrade Protection is fully supported and active by default on both servers and all clients. This is the only thing holding me back from setting up a public Prosody server as 0474 is still experimental. See [1]

- Avoid (block) federation on private servers for friends and family otherwise it is not a private server.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955264

Curious if you've tried Snikket, and what hurdles you ran into (if you did). I made it with the primary purpose of moving my family communication over to XMPP, and I succeeded with that (improving a bunch of stuff in the process). I'm not claiming it's perfect (a known weak point is the iOS app, but we're actively working on solving that...)

In trying, I discovered that most family members don't want to use anything that lets the government spy on its users, but one sibling is against privacy in general and only wants to use platforms that allow the government to spy on users, so there's no solution.

I just annoy them, but it backfired with Plex. now they are begging for user accounts for their friends/co-workers and I can't keep up*

I was in a very different situation. Microsoft decided to stop supporting Skype, which we had been using for 15 or so years. We moved to Matrix.

Matrix is still horrible. Element web is definition of bloat. Encryption mismatch issues. Device not verified issues. Did someone say metadata issues???

Signal just works. It acts like a feature rich messenger. XMPP/Matrix just isnt that good for the average person.

It was easy getting the family I talked to on Matrix to switch to XMPP, all I had to say was "imagine Element, but it actually works".

Improbable. This technology does not have a stable client and is overrun by garbage.

Try vibe coding your own app that your family and friends would install, and have this as the background communication layer.

Good luck!

First step:

Never, ever utter the term “XMPP server” to them.

Make sure that everyone in your family is a huge nerd. That’s the only way.

Just a little shout out to chatto (https://chatto.run/), which is the best slack/discord alternative i've seen so far. Not federated or crypto based, but just a solid chat platform.