> Because there isn't a good replacement in open source software

https://github.com/zulip/zulip/blob/9.4/LICENSE (Apache 2) and if you mean "good [hosted] replacement" https://zulip.com/for/open-source/

It, of course, does not speak to your decentralized wishlist but I'm sure they'd welcome an issue describing your goals

I really want to use zulip but last I checked they charged for push notifications. Without it, my group lost interest in using it due to missed messages.

I saw a post about webpush a day ago. Not sure if anything has changed for zulip in that area.

If you are using Zulip for an open-source project or a community, you are likely eligible for our free Community plan, which includes push notifications. https://zulip.com/help/self-hosted-billing#free-community-pl...

We charge businesses for our push notifications service because we need folks using our 100% open-source product to run their business to help pay the cost of developing it.

> others are pretty normie hostile

This is a fairly reasonable generalisation to make about the vast majority of open-source software. 'Normie-hostile'.

Things become less normie hostile as more people adopt it. Two decades ago reddit was normie hostile.

Reddit was never normie hostile. It may have not been mainstream but hostile to your average user, no. You logged in with a browser like Facebook, you could subscribe or not to any subreddit you wish, those subscriptions would show up on any browser/mobile app you logged in on, everything was stored for you server side. Centralization is what most normal people expect. They don't want to futz around with remember things or having to setup the clients every time they switch. They want it all there every time on every device.

> Matrix and others are pretty normie hostile.

Judging by the design choices I've seen in Matrix 2.0 beta clients, this seems to be changing. A few important fixes and a lot of UI simplification are falling into place. I would not be surprised if I could get my family members using it once these are all integrated in fully functional clients. Here's hoping.

University Linux User Group I would say is already not normies.

When I say normie, they are not posting on Hacker News and never heard of Y Combinator ;) They are your non tech friends and a lot of open source needs to interact with them where they are. Where they are is Discord.