Client Freedom

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Style Pass

2024-11-26 11:00:05

Client freedom, by analogy to the four freedoms, is the freedom to operate a third-party client to an API. Email, IRC, and RSS are open protocols with client freedom. You can read email through a native GUI app, a spartan text-only client, and even an Emacs mode.

Client freedom peaked in the 90s when most communication was through open protocols, and has been on the decline since. I remember, circa 2013, using Facebook Messenger over Pidgin, through their XMPP gateway, and with OTR messaging turned on. Then Facebook shut down its XMPP gateway, as Slack shut down its IRC gateway.

In 2024 most protocols we use are closed. Twitter, Discord, and most proprietary applications are closed protocols because I can’t BYOC. Discord explicitly bans third-party clients, and so does Twitter1. This has an uncomfortable risk profile where, if you use a third-party client, most of the time nothing happens, until the company installs a new traffic analysis package and bans your account unappealably.

I don’t even need client freedom to be the default. I would happily pay between 50 or 100AUD a month for a tier where I can just BYOC against a stable-ish API without risking a ban.