I think I locked myself out of my account. I’m only logged in on my old computer and I’ve deleted the app from my phone. I saved my security key (I have a session security key field and security-key.txt in my 1password) but Element didn’t seem able to use it to reactivate. I would lose all my chats. Which wouldn’t be the end of the world, but still, I’m just demonstrating that I’m tech savvy enough to save things I’m told to save but I either missed saving a recovery key, wasn’t told to, or the process is just lacking. Regardless, like I said, I’m just demonstrating that it can be tricky.

• Signup can be tricky.
• Managing your encryption keys is tricky for normal people (I know someone who signed up for it on incognito because they weren’t sure about it yet then got a bunch of confusing popups when they signed on with their phone).
• Room organization is missing a layer used on discord (server->room instead of list of rooms) leading to confusing moderation structures and nearly required manual organization of rooms if you’re in more than 10.
• notifications rules can be obtuse.
• having different commands based on the clients used can lead to confusion.
• most clients have security related popups that just confuse people (This person reset their identity!).
• people can struggle with how to properly interact over federation, much like in the fediverse
• screensharing tools just aren’t there yet

Things have been getting better fast for matrix, but its just not ready for the masses IMO. I still suggest it when I can when the use case makes sense.

Hosting it is far from simple