I had very high hopes for matrix because of the bridging capabilities but I was sorely disappointed after spending a couple hours to set it all up. Some of the bridges require violating the TOS for other applications, or going into the dev tools to copy cookies. Basically completely unapproachable for non-programmers. Once you have a bridge it's impossible to start a new chat with someone in another app. You need to start the chat in the other app, wait for the matrix bridge to be notified of the chat, and then you can continue the conversation in matrix.
Of course it breaches plenty of ToS, they're third-party bridges for Matrix that are developed by people within the community. Do you really think that big corps are going to be happy about people not seeing ads? Of course not, ergo there are ToS clauses there to discourage people from doing so.
For non-programmers, there are cheap turn-key SaaS. Look at Beeper for example: https://www.beeper.com/
You also don't need to start the chat in another app, that's complete and utter bollocks, regardless of whether you use SaaS like Beeper, or your own home server.
I'll check back in with you in 5 years and we can laugh at each other: @hammy:matrix.splitanatom.com :- )
I bridge Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram and you can absolutely start chats through the bridge bot. It might be a little inconvenient, but for the rare occasion I do need it, it works absolutely fine.
