Introduction

Today's chat communities deserve better.

Real-time group chat has been a fundamental part of the internet since its beginning. Services like Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Skype allowed people to connect, share, and form genuine communities. But the landscape has changed dramatically.

Modern chat platforms have become bloated and expensive. They force communities into costly enterprise plans or require members to crowdfund basic functionality. These platforms are designed for corporate enterprises, not communities, and they ignore user feedback while adding features nobody wants. Client apps get slower and more buggy with each update, and users have no control over their data or privacy settings. Data retention policies are opaque, and users' conversations are being used to train AI without consent. Poor user experience decisions are made in the relentless search for revenue.

Sblurp represents a pragmatic approach to modern chat communities, focusing on usability, performance, privacy, and control. Our goal is to create a group chat platform with blazing-fast apps, useful features without bloat, rich customization, and the ability for communities to maintain control of their data. We believe chat communities should be able to communicate freely without being locked into expensive, privacy-invasive platforms that prioritize corporate interests over user needs.