It really is just as easy to onboard to Element as Signal these days, the UX has come a long way. And you'll never have the move them again, because you can choose any client you like.
That's very good to hear. I use Element a lot, but I found it very difficult to get non-technical friends and family to use it. A better onboarding experience is a real step in the right direction.
Another constant stumbling block is this whole "verify session" business. No one understands what it means. I understand technically what it does but I can't explain why it is so important that it keeps popping up all the time. It creates a constant sense of "something isn't right here but I don't know what to do".
Yep, it's definitely been frustrating in the past. The number of iOS Element bugs was overwhelming at times too. It's a lot more stable now, but the bubble layout still isn't the default - I think that's what most people expect from a personal messenger. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Rust rewrite [1] brings for performance/stability.
FluffyChat also has quite nice UX and a bubble layout by default, but threads are still a while off [2]. On iOS it worked flawlessly through the iOS 16 betas while Element had some show stopping bugs, a couple of my friends moved over if they were on the beta.
I haven't had any friends ask me about the verify session buttons. I don't see any prompts on latest iOS Element but it's still too prominent on Element desktop for my liking.
SchildiChat [3] is my daily driver and feels more friendly than Element on desktop (unified DMs & group chats, no verify UX, chat bubbles), but it doesn't have any update mechanism built in, so I'm wary to recommend it to non-technical friends. It was also my goto recommendation on Android before the Element redesign.
I'm confident the ecosystem is moving in the right direction though, and so thankful for the amount of choice.
But why would you need to convince them? There's nothing wrong with using a free matrix.org account unless and until you do understand the benefits of using something else.
The good thing about having the federated protocol is that people can use different providers and change providers without destroying the network effects.
It's perfectly fine if most people end up using one of very few big providers as long as all providers support federation.
I think we have to make a distinction between personal communication and mass communication. The former is a question of privacy. The latter is a question of political freedoms.
What costs? Element (a popular Matrix client) has recently improved their onboarding greatly!
https://element.io/blog/all-aboard-better-ftue-for-less-wtf/
It really is just as easy to onboard to Element as Signal these days, the UX has come a long way. And you'll never have the move them again, because you can choose any client you like.