Ask HN: Is it time to switch your acquaintances to Riot.im?

With the recent Facebook scandal, many people are thinking of closing their account and looking for alternative services. The problem in switching a social service is that you can do it only if most of your contacts switch at the same time; but a time like this opens a window of opportunity for a competitor to gain a foothold, and make a significant dent in the share of clients for IM and "social sharing".

Since e-mail and news groups, there has never been a decentralized and open source communication protocol popular with the general public (IRC came close, but its interface is too arcane for most people).

Riot.im is a decentralized open source IM client which is mature enough, flexible enough, user-friendly enough and available at enough platforms to be a viable replacement for basic social interactions between non-technical people.

Is it a good idea to promote its use among my contacts right now, maybe setting a local Matrix server for my close group? I don't want to burn my bridges; if this doesn't pay off now, I won't be able to convince them in the future.