In my experience it has been a 1:1 discord replacement. It has channels, all kinds of emojis, video/voice calls, and multiple clients that give a very similar appearance to discord.
How has it not been the same for you?
Yeah, this - one of the big reasons I still have a google account is for convenient location sharing with family and friends.
Interesting, I have not had perfect results with it (certainly a lot of places are not on OSM yet or up to date), but I’ve generally had a good time with this app. Bookmarked locations work perfectly for me, better than google maps, and the lists/folders are really nice for organizing bookmarks. I have never gotten stuck in the menus at all (android here). However I very much agree that the UX could use a serious design overhaul (but its way nicer/quicker and more intuitive to use than OsmAnd!).
As for ease of use and familiarity, it seems to have reached par as far as a couple of my less technical friends go (see screenshot below for similarity to discord - its practically identical to our old setup).
As for on boarding, use cinny.in as your client (and don’t tell your users that other clients exist) and you are off to the races!