I have way too many domains. Some of them I bought because I had an idea for a project, but then I realized that the project was going to take a lot more effort than I felt like doing, and then I quit. Or I thought the domain was quirky and interesting enough that I wanted to keep it for an email address (I sometimes like to pretend that email isn't a dying medium and I'll make a fortune reselling email hosting). Sometimes I go through domain drop lists and find something that just looks neat. Playing with domains is one of my hobbies.
One of the domains that I don't really talk about much is multiversenetwork.com. I found it on a domain drop list and it just looked like it was a fun name. Looking back on Archive.org, it looks like it was the website for an ISP for a while. I sat on it for a long time, not really with any plans for it, but kept it around for testing purposes. Then I heard about Matrix.
If you've never heard of Matrix, their FAQ says:
Matrix is an open standard for interoperable, decentralised, real-time communication over IP. It can be used to power Instant Messaging, VoIP/WebRTC signalling, Internet of Things communication - or anywhere you need a standard HTTP API for publishing and subscribing to data whilst tracking the conversation history.
Matrix defines the standard, and provides open source reference implementations of Matrix-compatible Servers, Client SDKs and Application Services to help you create new communication solutions or extend the capabilities and reach of existing ones.
Basically, Matrix is a standard for how a communication package thing might be made. Matrix also wrote a reference server called Synapse if you don't want to write your own (and I don't). The more I read about how Matrix worked, I got intrigued, and since I had the domain multiversenetwork.com just sitting around doing nothing useful, I decided to give it a try and see what all the hubbub was about.
The installation process was involved, but not onerous for me. The docs were mostly well-written, but there were some gotchas that I should probably tell the admins about. I couldn't imagine trying to install Synapse starting completely from zero (you'd probably want to know at least a little bit about server configuration, software installation, and that kind of thing. I'm still working out some kinks.
I also installed Riot Element so that I can actually use the thing in a web browser and on my cell phone. I still have some things to do and some tweaks to make.
Like a lot of things, I like the idea of something like Matrix. The idea that I can spin up a server if I want to and then participate in the larger ecosystem without having to sell my soul to some corporate overlord who does unspeakable things to my data. I realize that makes me an extreme minority these days, but I think that it's still important. It's important to keep that spirit of independent interoperability alive, rather than centralizing all of our communication through one giant phone-tap.
I don't really know what I'm going to do with this thing, though. I don't plan on opening registration to friends and/or family because I don't want to be responsible for someone else's data. I might look at bridges and try to use it as a hub for communicating with them, though. For the ones that are on whatever the flavor of the month communication platform it and refuse to email or IRC (I'm sure some of them feel the same way about me refusing to have anything to do with Facebook, so that's a wash).
I also bought (with real money!) an SSL certificate for the thing because it was required and Let's Encrypt is annoying. So I have some monetary incentive to keep it running at least until the certificate expires. We'll see how I feel about it, then.