It would be also really useful to have a database of oil company executives and other shitty people that aren't easy to recognize but worth refusing service etc.
What kind of material and size limitations are there?
Since Snikket is just an XMPP server, it can be used with desktop apps like Dino as well.
All the corporate gamification feature are probably quite annoying.
It really is an enterprise solution and I doubt your family will be happy with it.
Why not just set up a Snikket server and use that? You can easily create group-chats and share pictures and videos there and the interface is similar to WhatsApp.
You can grow oyster mushrooms at home, there are nice ready made kits to buy.
Works great with Akkoma as well.
It has pretty much stagnated in the English speaking part of the internet, and only saw a huge boost in popularity in Brazil recently (due to Twitter being newly banned there).
Huh, it was still working when I posted it one hour ago... unlucky I guess 🤷♂️
https://snikket.org/ is the easy to configure XMPP server, but it still needs SSL certificates. But that's fairly easy to do with Snikket AFAIK.
Or you could simply ask the Snikket developers to host a server for you for a small fee. If you are US or Canada based https://jmp.chat/ is also a great service, and it includes a free Snikket server as an add-on.
While your post does mention notifications which really helps with engagement and was lacking from most forums, the main issue was IMHO lack of good mobile support of all the main forum platforms until as you said Discourse came along, but by then it was too late.