Reddit previously experimented with live audio chat rooms, but ultimately discontinued the feature.

Given Lemmy’s unique position as a federated, open-source alternative to Reddit, should the Lemmy project (or individual instances) consider developing a similar voice chat feature?

• What potential benefits could voice chat bring to Lemmy communities, especially considering the platform’s focus on decentralized moderation and privacy?
• How might voice chat align or conflict with Lemmy’s core values of decentralization, privacy, and user autonomy?
• What technical and moderation challenges could arise from implementing real-time audio communication on a federated network, and how might these differ from centralized platforms like Reddit?
• Should such a feature be standardized across all Lemmy instances, or left as an optional plugin for instance admins to enable or disable?
• How could Lemmy’s open-source nature and ActivityPub federation protocol influence the design, adoption, and interoperability of a voice chat feature across the Fediverse.
• Are there existing open-source projects or protocols that could be leveraged to add voice chat in a privacy-respecting, decentralized way?

I’m interested in hearing from both users and developers about whether this is a direction Lemmy should explore, and what considerations should guide such a decision.

https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/11o30v2/why_is_reddit_ending_audio_chats/

https://mashable.com/article/reddit-clubhouse-voice-chat