This is a brilliant take. I was talking to friends the other day and we were reminiscing about the old days where you'd email and phone people. And if there was a family event you'd shove a quite write up and some photos on your personal web site and email the links out to people. Some parts of the family would mail a newsletter around periodically.

We decided to do the same again.

My Mom (70s, retired special ed teacher) got the family on Signal and it's a breeze to do video calls or send pictures/messages to people.

They occasionally have a donation popup but it's one of the easiest and least intrusive programs I've ever used, and it just works.

Email is not chat and it's certainly not Instagram. Your suggestion will only work for people who are not really users of WhatsApp or Instagram.