Annoying People
So, I've been actively promoting Jami for some years now and I've managed to have many tens of people I know try it, but have generally succeeded in either annoying people or they've gotten annoyed at Jami and by extension gotten annoyed at me because of its failure to reliably connect.
In spite of me imploring people to keep using it, attempting to explain how it works differently from server-based apps (and typically failing), that the more people who use it the better it gets, people have moved over to or continued to use Signal, Telegram, Wickr, etc. and I'm having to follow suit a lot of the time by virtue of the Network Effect.
So, it is because of this experience with others, whose experience is consistent with mine I might add, but I'm just more stubborn, that I propose an addition to the architecture which involves a using a server-based location service.
I am aware of the hash resolver server for usernames, but this is about resolving IPs for making connections. Using a DHT as the sole means of finding people struggles when the nodes are too few to be discoverable and hence people give up on it, particularly in light of "It just works!" with other platforms. It isn't 1990 any more!
Unlike those other services, such a server would not carry traffic and should not be employed if the DHT resolves the location fast enough. Depending on configuration it could be used as:
- a. The first place to check. (Not ideal as it could create needless traffic if the DHT is doing its job.)
- b. As a fallback. (The suggested default.)
- c. Never. (For the hardcore amongst us!)
I would hope that such a server would be pretty low maintenance and low traffic; and that any changes involved to clients would be minimal.