Privacy

Me too, but at the same time I'm glad we don't all use exactly the same thing as that usually means cyberattacks are funneled to just one option. You could also say XMPP has been the default for the longest time, but just as it still happens today using XMPP doesn't mean everything is compatible. Each app has it's own set of features, some only use OTR for encryption, others might use OMEMO but not the same version and mix up encryption keys... Matrix used to be more compatible between clients, but then 2.0 appeared and either some features aren't handled the same or some servers don't so federation breaks or gets laggy. My guess is the next widely adopted thing will probably be a freemium, falsely secure and not private at all centralized service based on FOSS software, already prebundled and preset together with whatever people use the most and with some "all-you-can-eat" offering (probably AI unless the fad fades out). So maybe an upgrade to Whatsapp or something else from Meta or Microsoft. Apple won't do anything that's crossplatform, Google can't persevere on a single IM solution without releasing 3 more that add nothing new and scraping them all in a year, and Amazon will probably stick to backend.

Still, nothing stops us from using whatever the hell we want. I have my XMPP account and I'm happy with it. I don't have much use for it, but I don't plan on deleting it anytime soon.