Been there, done that... It is a waste of time and effort if you can't convince other people to join your services. I have operated a jabber server for quite some time (2008ish - 2012). Mostly for me and some friends to organize lan parties and such. I told other people about it but after a week of interest, no one seriously used it, since everyone was already using other services to communicate -- also using a XMPP client seemed to be to much to ask for the non-techies.

As time goes on our communications moved towards facebook and teamspeak. And after dropping out of the local gaming scene I stopped operating it altogether -- if I am the only one using a comms-infrastructure its kinda moot, even if it's a federated system. I had some contacts outside of the gaming-bubble but by the time no one seemed to have used it anymore.

it really is an issue of network-lock-in though. facebook is already bloated, discord will become as well. they try hard not to rot but they will

Maybe something to make would be an addition to mail servers that chat-ifies group emails.

all you need is an X-header. I also liked the expires header but it didnt catch on

Chatifies in what way?

Group iMessage = CC list, cc list becomes messaging group. I suppose one way this could play out would be simply to add an email submission API for text messaging app(s), but it's an incomplete idea so far. :)

I'm still not sure what you mean. Are you simply talking about an email client that looks like a text messaging program?

That's doable. The image in my mind was the reverse: a chat program that displays email threads. Interactions in chat become mailing list replies emailed out, and replies to the CC list are displayed in the chat channel.

I like that idea; An email client that looks and behaves like the regular messaging apps in iOS/Android.