We are right now testing if we can switch to nextcloud talk.
One major impact is the bad UX for identifying own messages from other messages and the feedback from all testers, is that this is odd and if we could enable split view.

Here the patched nextcloud talk with the split view, which now looks like this

I could improve it a bit more (more width for the messages) but I wanted only to try how complex it would be...

Old - hopefully outdated - decision

After researching here I have seen the issues #902 and #14514
So the feature was rejected, but I want to reopen it because the patch seems to be easy and far away from complex. See my attached patch

Market situation of chat UX optimized views

Also to reopen the discussion I like to discuss on facts and market data. So here a current research about facts and market:

You can see that the split view (left / right) oriented messaging seems to be far more common and we do not talk about few percent, we talk about powers of 10....

My suggestion - allow users to decide with a configuration

So my suggestion would be to allow the users in the profile to select their way of chat visualization.
But I am also willing to get into bets, which variant will win the user's preference ;-)

My patch

very simple, see my commit

Improvements to my patch recommended

• it requires a better output of the HTML to have some better identification of my and other messages, e.g. by adding some css classes to the sections.
• it is required to allow the user to configure the setting to have both parties, the unified view as the most deciders here and the UX optimized view the split view
• enable split view also in nextcloud talk desktop app

I would require for the above cases some developer adivces where to take a look into the code.
My provided patch was a quick hack as a POC to be able ask my testers, if they expect it like this. And guess what they answered with a smile in the face ;-)

Maybe my approach is not perfect, but it is focusing on the mass in the market and on the best UX for the users to decide.

Hope with my factual restating and the simple patch, here are the deciders about this issue reconsidering their former decision taken.
My suggestion is to implement the split view as configurable user's option