While Jitsi is open-source, most people use the platform they provide, meet.jit.si, for immediate conference calls. They have now introduced a “Know Your Customer” policy and require at least one of the attendees to log in with a Facebook, Github (Microsoft), or Google account.
One option to avoid this is to self-host, but then you’ll be identifiable via your domain and have to maintain a server.
As a true alternative to Jitsi, there’s jami.net. It is a decentralized conference app, free open-source, and account creation is optional. It’s available for all major platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android), including on F-Droid.
Jitsi remains free. As you can see, this isn’t about money but rather about privacy, which has diminished compared to before.
The issue with centralized systems becomes more apparent: the provders are held accountable for their users’ actions.
@esaru @bmaxv @technology concur that this reduces privacy for users of Jitsi’s hosted service. It also has some concrete benefits for Jitsi - they get to outsource account validation and security. Perhaps they were struggling to contain abuse.
