Asking because I value opinions here.
Personally I don’t think anyone can influence what the general audience of chat users ultimately coalesces around. That’s going to happen, and it’s going to be out of anyone’s control as people discuss and compare and decide which they prefer of the dozens of alternatives appearing.
This however looks interesting to me. I know it’s not Matrix and thus not secure like everyone here wants. But it is fully open source and it is AGPLv3.
It feels like it’s getting some traction and interest. If it has problems that anyone here can spot (besides the full encryption which isn’t something the rest of the discord users looking to leave are going to demand), I am interested in hearing them.
Matrix’s UX has a bit of friction, but that’s the cost of an open, federated, encrypted platform where you own your own encryption keys. Every closed-source, centralized alternative is very much a “trust me bro” situation when it comes to message encryption and backdoors.
Element sucks as a client, I always recommend FluffyChat or SchildiChat to first-timers. On desktop/web, Cinny and Commet are fantastic options for people who want a Discord-like UI.