"Friends and family" are perfectly fine with gimp or even something simpler.

Telegram owns Whatsapp across the ceiling and down the walls in every aspect (only one I'm not sure about is security and for that one I don't know.) We already converted the inlaws (yep, big family) few months ago and it works like a charm.

An 50 year old electrician was the first to show me Ubuntu back in 2006 and he was enthusiastic about it.

So no, I don't buy it.

Of course many of them will never care, but that is because they don't care, not because there aren't alternatives.

Edit: saw employers mentioned. In that moment we are suddenly talking about professionals who just happens to be friends and family as well. In that case Photoshop might be a good solution.