I didn't, that's not something you ask 'normal' people to do.

Signal is incredible user friendly, privacy respecting, the gold standard for encryption, cross platform, etc. Yes, it’s centralized, yes it’s imperfect in many ways, but it’s easy and it’s pretty damn good.

If you want to help the people around you to become more involved in understanding and owning their tech, it has to be an easy and good experience. It has to be tangibly better, not just abstractly better with tangible downsides.

I use XMPP, but would never try to convince my friends and family to use it; it’s too complicated, the user facing apps all suck (Snikket and Cheogram are the best of the bad lot), and the incentives to use it aren't there. As you said, it’s just not attractive to a regular user, since it’s all around a worse experience than what they currently use. The one exception is that I do occasionally recommend XMPP for SIP access via jmp.chat to some of my more technical friends who have a tolerance for clunky user experiences in favor of privacy and affordability. I am holding onto an unreasonable hope that Signal or Whatsapp or others will consider XMPP+OMEO in the future to popularize the standard, but that is extremely unlikely.

Matrix also is an unfortunately terrible alternative to discord (even Element is a rather lacking user experience), so while I have pushed to move groups there before, I no longer recommend Matrix. I suggest signal or nextcloud as alternatives when possible; the remaining large groups who need the closed server forum style system are usually unlikely to move to Matrix anyway.

Unless everyone in your circle is on HN all the time, you will probably fail to convince them to change.

The more likely outcome is that you wind up annoying everyone involved and don't get invited to the new discord server.

- Whether family or friends, always suggest it as a "fallback" for when "preferred service" is down and to use when discussion ultra-sensitive topics or sharing financial files. With time they may just stay connected to it if the friction to do so is low. It has to be their choice, not yours.

- What helps? Add more incentives such as perks that "preferred service" does not offer. No file size limits. No or few file type limits. No content filters. Add emoji's or gifs that align with their inside jokes and their style of humor. Keeping random people away is very important. Making your friends and family administrators or moderators and let them decide how it operates. Do not moderate or power-trip over your friends or family or they will leave. Limit rules to "Do not break the laws of this country in public chatrooms" and private chat rooms if you do not physically host the server. Database and file backups become even more important but they will feel in control of a thing. Have a keyword or code word they all learn means to go check the private platform that "primary platform" would not recognize. Maybe when they see "Turtle Farts!" they know to go log into your service.

- They may just stay on their primary preferred service. Every group is different and not every group will see the benefits of your fallback service. They may not appreciate the work you put into setting it up for them. Do not expect to get the friends of your friends and family to move to your service. They may not appreciate the OpSec value until "Bad Things"(c)™2038 happen to enough people. Just be there for when it does.

- If there are concerns that you would spy on them, consider instead using eJapperd or Prosody as you can implement OMEMO for individual and group end-to-end encrypted messages. Set up TLS fingerprint checks from multiple locations to reduce the risk of MitM attacks until XEP-0474: SASL SCRAM Downgrade Protection is fully supported and active by default on both servers and all clients. This is the only thing holding me back from setting up a public Prosody server as 0474 is still experimental. See [1]

- Avoid (block) federation on private servers for friends and family otherwise it is not a private server.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955264

I have tried Matrix, XMPP (Conversations), Signal and even some Nostr clients but Delta Chat has by far the best UX and reliability. It has groups, channels and private messages, stickers and built-in video calls. My only gripe is that it doesn't have video messages or screen share like Telegram yet.

If you want to try it out you're always welcome to message me.

I have an XMPP server which works on a small server, it has been running for nearly 10 years with 0 issues. We are about 20 on it.

I didn't convince them, I installed the client on their device and told them "use this icon to talk to me". Then they realized they could talk to each other. They don't care about anything else.

What I'd like to see in an XMPP client:

On desktop:

- something lighter, dino is not bad, but it can use quite a lot of CPU - better theming, some people like bubbles, other prefer irc like - GIF picker, it could require a server side proxy I don't care, I just want it - better control when sending image (crop, quality...)

On mobile:

- better sharing (vcard, image with good control) - GIF picker - a few UI tweaks, like text colors and layout

I also periodically take advantage of news stories that trend like when discord was going to ID people, I made a point to bring that up to convert more people, and always get a couple new takers.

When something fails to work like group messages fracturing or big files not sharing well with iPhone users, I make clear the practical value of having our own control and resources as a social network.

I also try to make sure my server has useful bots, a small thing but every bit of utility and differentiation with proprietary services helps.

I share guides on how to get back in, one thing people get confused about is that they don't have to give PII but they do need to remember the home server URL and save their key and password. So making sure to have ready pointers and blurbs on how to login that you can share quickly is necessary because people inevitably get logged out, especially iPhone users get confused easily (for app store culture reasons I think) and need kind but eager assistance.

I try to make sure we have well moderated safe space e2ee rooms to talk about hard issues, and people do realize over time that certain things are more awkward to say digitally if you know it could be being surveilled or tracked, even the metadata.

I've also encouraged technical friends to run their own servers and federate, got a couple to actually do it which is a cool feeling.

It takes time (years), patience, and effort, but many little pushes will build a community.

Matrix will work though. Element X is very polished. Same with FluffyChat. However, I still only bother with getting my immediate household to use it. A "family" chat is totally fine with me. And that let's me hook bots and agents up to it.

For a little plug... it's can very easy, in fact, to get a Matrix server set up these days, including full voice and video chat:

https://github.com/pkulak/barnaby-home

Some of my friends are geeks any way so they use it on there own (always brings me joy when i just meet someone and find out they use Signal, not this is how I choose friends though), and I use XMPP as my main messaging protocol (through a public server). But with family, it’s mostly WhatsApp unfortunately.

Signal just works. It acts like a feature rich messenger. XMPP/Matrix just isnt that good for the average person.

Never, ever utter the term “XMPP server” to them.

My pitch was simply that I will no longer be using surveillance capitalism products on principle, and I am willing to explain more to anyone interested or help anyone switch. Then I stopped using said services.

This is a lifestyle choice and those that love you will respect it just the same as if you went vegan or something. You do not need permission from others to make an choice about what you are or are not comfortable consuming in your life.

Talked to some people via intentional phone calls or in person visits and the ones that really want to have async communication with me signed up for matrix one by one. Now my family and inlaws are all on matrix with no algorithms or spies in the mix.

There are a number of former friends that are only comfortable communicating online with well known product brands even if they are being spied on and exploited. That is unfortunate, but it is a quick filter to see who actually respects your values and values real communication with you specifically, and who just wants an easy audience for their shitposts and conspiracy memes.

Try vibe coding your own app that your family and friends would install, and have this as the background communication layer.

Good luck!

Have you ever seen Plaid's TOS? They literally say you give them permission to spy on your entire financial/banking life for THIRTY yes 30 YEARS!! If you click accept on their usually required tos for whatever financial service you are using that no one reads. What do you think they do with that info? Well if you have seen the rise in prices its not due to inflation it is things like dynamic pricing and the salesperson knowing to the penny how much money you can spend TODAY. You tell the car dealer for instance you can only afford 50k but they know for a fact you have 55K, they are not budging and neither is any other dealer because they all have the same info.

That is just one example, and yes I understand that inflation is a factor but inflation did not raise prices 400% all across the board everywhere. Thats why its confusing when you see the governement saying inflation is bad but not terrible. They are not lying...precisely. They of course are not doing anything about regulating the price gouging and one sided "value extraction" or the open collusion of corporations through obvious third party sacrificial entities.