I signed up with Matrix and it was not seamless but maybe a private server would be great and they could go from there (but that feels like a long term commitment to supporting those users). I haven't really played much with it. Tried getting the folks in my discord server to give it a try but they haven't and they are tech folks. I would say it's not ready for normies, but I really wish it was.

I still have it installed on my phone, but I don't really have anywhere interesting to go. Same with Signal TBH—it's installed but no one I know uses it. Still waiting on my invite from the Secretary of Defense.