> i.e. that users shouldn't have to depend on someone else's server or run their own just to gather online

I don't understand this. Can you elaborate exactly what you mean?

Because to me... you're now just depending on a whole bunch of other people's machines indirectly, and directly on the community owner's machine which is generating the certs.

It feels like a lot of complexity for something that could just be a small chat server running on the community owner's server (which they will need anyways - unless I'm misunderstanding, which is entirely possible).

---

So since I'm probably missing something - can I get the elevator pitch?

Assume I'm your target market (I want private messaging that I control).

I would likely be a "community owner" as described in your article.

I am already running a self-hosted solution (ex: Zulip/Rocket/Mattermost).

What makes this a compelling offering to me?