It works simillarly to an IRC. You have a server, that server can have channels, I think it can even do voice. But, unlike IRC, you can also use your server to talk to people on other servers, similar to how Fediverse works - if I have a server hosted on myserver.com, and someone else has a public room on server otherserver.com, I can either join the room@otherserver.com or message person@otherserver.com, all from my account on myserver.com.

And bridges are basically just bots that run on your own server, and by scraping websites/using API of the service your bridging they create a private room i.e Messenger@myserver.com, with subrooms per chat, and the bot then sends every message it recieves signed into your messenger account to the room, and vice versa - anything you send there will it forward to the real messenger, basically allowing you to chat with people on messenger through your matrix server. Which solves the problem of “Each of my friend is using different messaging service, can I have them all in one app? (The app being Matrix client)”.

I’m a fan of self-hosted Matrix server. You can get a dozen of bridges for those stubborn people that refuse to leave messenger/whatsapp/telegram (at a loss of encryption, and they still get your convos, but at least you don’t have their spyware on your mobile and you can have everything in one app), while also being decentralized.

Self-hosting a server is actually really, really easy. It took me like half an hour, because there is an amazing Matrix Ansible Deploy script, that has a pretty easy to follow documentation, and is also one of those super-rare projects that just works. Even if I forgot to update my server for several months, I could literally “just update”, and the script is clever enough to figure out what changed, tell me what I need to update in the config files (which are still only like four rows of stuff I needed to setup), and it is a really smooth experience.

If I ever wanted to fight against my local regime, it would definitely not be through US and CIA, lol.

To add to other commenters - its also really hard, assuming you play solo, to focus on your own performance and not blame teammates. I’ve never been toxic, and tried to focus on my own gameplay, but I eventually realized its almost impossible. Even though I thought that I don’t care about others, and even though I managed to never be toxic, it only ocurred to me when I switched to StarCraft, where you play 1v1 and there’s no-one else to blame. It was so mentally taxing, queueing for another game when you know that you just suck and will loose again to some easy build. I lasted for two months of ranked StarCraft, before I had to quit due to mental health. I just wasn’t able to play anymore and was dreading the next match.

Which is something that never happened to me in MOBAs, because even though I was sure I’m only focusing on myself, it became clear that wasn’t true - otherwise, I’d have quickly had the same problem as with 1v1 games. I managed to not be toxic because I hate toxicity and am non-confrotational in general, but if you are someone with less self-control, blaming your teammates just come so, so naturally. And accepting your own mistakes is way harder than I thought, which surprised me by how much.

Dovetail sounds like a bird. It’s not a bird, right? Right?