Matrix is what I moved to. To make transition easier for my core friends I wrote a guide with step by step instructions and pre-made a replica of our discord server. I got probably 70% of them to come over.

The real hit was large communities. For roughly a month I came in daily letting my communities know about what was happening and that I was gonna switch so if people wanted to find me here is where they could find me. I got 3 kinds of replies:

1. The nihilistic “I’ll never escape it, everyone already has my information, why fight it”
2. (In reference to the ID verification) “I’m not American so I don’t care if people have my ID because my country doesn’t have the problems America has”
3. “Moving is too hard and I use one specific feature the other apps don’t have and my friends are here so I’ll move when they move”

Moving to the new platform, giving a grace period to friends, and then moving and cutting contact with the platform had the highest success rate. People that want to talk with you will move, even if it’s just to only talk with you. But the hardest thing is accepting that some people just don’t care about their privacy and want the easy to use features enough that they are willing to lose contact with you.