Don't let the negatity and accusations here bring you down. I have great faith in what you're doing and greatly anticipate what is to come. I also really liked the post on backdoors and the EU proposal.

I've managed to talk 6 people into making an account (matrix.org) and using element. None of them are linux-y or tech-y and they've mostly managed fine (apart from help with setting up e2ee, exporting keys etc which I helped with).

Is the app dead easy to use (like WhatsApp, Viber, Signal)? No it isn't but it's understandable.