You should definitely consider the matrix protocol (https://matrix.org) that is used with riot (https://riot.im). Matrix allows for a complete decentralization and both the the protocol and the client are open source. There are even many other clients as matrix also works with for example weechat.

One of it's biggest strength are the support for bridges to other messengers like slack, irc and gitter. I personally haven't yet tried group calls or video chat, but considering that those also use end to end encryption just as messages and attachement and that this encryption has been fully audited, I could barely be any less hyped about all this. As the author of this article pointed out, all of skype's flaws are more or less inherent of big centralized messengers and this is exactly what we get around with matrix. It's really amazing in what a great state it already is. Sure there is still lots of work left, but to me it appears to be the currently most promising project.

Both are too difficult for normal people to grasp and have no central id management so you have to copy it manually

Is matrix/riot ready for voice, video and conf video?

Why don't you try Jitsi? https://jitsi.org/

You can also try https://meet.jit.si/

Works directly in the browser (thanks to WebRTC), nothing to install, no need to create an accound.

There's group video chat, screen sharing, youtube video sharing, collaborative text editing,...

And it's free software :)

I just had a look at Jitsi and it seems like the Android app is in alpha stage, and that there won't be any iOS app (https://jitsi.org/Documentation/FAQ#ios). Smartphone apps are important to convince my contacts to make the switch, and to be able to communicate with them over the same channel when they're away from the computer.

I too switched from Skype to Wire, but it has been a challenge to convince other people to move to Wire. It has further been frustrating that it almost seems like the people running Wire have been trying to avoid marketing or letting people know that Wire exists.

That makes me wonder about their long term intentions (and if I'll lose credibility with my contacts that finally migrate to Wire just before wire vanishes or gets bought out by Facebook or Microsoft...)

I wouldn't say that they've avoided marketing, they're active on Twitter. I made the switch over a single day by sending a message to all my contacts informing them about it and then proceeded to delete all contacts from my list. The people I speak to regularly were quick to switch, others have switched over the months. I still have to use Skype from time to time for conference calls with certain people, but I avoid it as much as I can and don't consider any conversation I have on Skype as private.

Wire has also open-sourced their clients and a lot of components, so even if they were to vanish as a company, all work is not lost.

Wire also recently added an username feature[1], where you choose a certain username and don't need to disclose your name or phone number for others to find you on it. This replaced looking up contacts per e-mail.

[1] https://medium.com/wire-news/time-to-get-your-username-3a54f...

I've looked at alternatives too, tried Jitsi.org and Ring.cx so far, with Jitsi seeming to be more robust when establishing connections through NAT. Thanks for the suggestion about Wire, will have to try that too.