I assume you also have to trust the servers which the accounts you’re messaging are stored on. (Although there are real situations where all users will be on the same server, where this is obviously a great benefit.)
Decentralization actually can be really powerful to give you a backup even if you prefer Signal; Signal’s servers very infrequently go down, but when they do, you entirely lose that channel for an unpredictable amount of time.
Yeah, “Matrix as IRC” with general interest rooms is an unmonitored cesspool. “Matrix as IM” for staying in touch with mates is doing just fine.
But then what’s the benefit to Signal? Just that it’s decentralized?
You can’t know with certainty on Signal that the client and the server are actually keeping your messages encrypted at rest, you have to trust them.
With Matrix, if you self host, you are the one in control.
I assume you also have to trust the servers which the accounts you’re messaging are stored on. (Although there are real situations where all users will be on the same server, where this is obviously a great benefit.)
Isn’t Signal E2E encrypted? How would it be able to decrypt them?
Decentralization actually can be really powerful to give you a backup even if you prefer Signal; Signal’s servers very infrequently go down, but when they do, you entirely lose that channel for an unpredictable amount of time.
That is certainly an improvement over Signal, yeah.