Definitely agree. Take a look at the number of Matrix clients:

The world doesn't need that many clients, it needs 1 or 2 really good ones that are well polished, supported and marketed.

This is a problem in other open-source ecosystems. Eg. We don't need more web browsers, we need Firefox to focus on being a great web browser.

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Arathorn 3 days ago | parent [-]

This feels very strange: the clients on that page span a huge range of maturity and capability. If you put every email client or every web browser on a single page you’d get a crazy mix too - does that mean that email & the web have failed? Just the opposite, surely.

If you want to narrow it down to one or two really great ones which are well polished, supported and marketed just pick Element X, Beeper or maybe Fluffychat?

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Flere-Imsaho 3 days ago | parent [-]

> If you put every email client or every web browser on a single page you’d get a crazy mix too -

And yet how many web browsers are actually well known and used by the average web user?

Safari, chrome and Firefox (if you're lucky).

My point is that if there are too many choices for users then the network effect is lost.

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snerbles 3 days ago | parent [-]

When I onboard users to my Matrix homeserver, I point them to a preconfigured Element-Web URL and the Element mobile apps. I also mention that there are other clients out there - a handful experiment with them, most don't.

One discovery problem is this client had three rebrandings, from Vector to Riot to Element. I've noticed users have had a hard time realizing the Element is a client for Matrix - even when they're actively chatting on Element. Usually they just refer to our chat by the homeserver's name.

	▲	cosmic_cheese 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> One discovery problem is this client had three rebrandings, from Vector to Riot to Element. I've noticed users have had a hard time realizing the Element is a client for Matrix - even when they're actively chatting on Element. Usually they just refer to our chat by the homeserver's name. What this tells me is that having a canonical primary client with the same name as the protocol would do wonders. This doesn’t rule out third party clients, it just clarifies matters for users who don’t necessarily know what a client is and have trouble conceptualizing the protocol/service/client divide. Those who are technical enough will seek out their favorite client, but for everybody else chatting on Matrix means downloading the Matrix app.