I'm actually seeing lots of self-hosted solutions to communications... They're supposed to work exactly like the offerings from Google/Facebook/other chat services... Some of them are even in FreeBSD's ports, I think. www/owncloud is definitely in ports. Trouble is, even if you set something up, it still means everyone else who you want to talk with - kind of has to switch to your personal server, and cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Even if there's an app to connect, that's extra setup effort on your friends' part.
The Big Tech companies like Discord, Whatsapp, Slack, etc. are already out there... it's easier to invite friends to Discord than to your own self-hosted communication solution. Well, on Discord, I think, it's not impossible to 'have your own server for your circle of friends', and move that to a self-hosted thing that is still connected to Discord. It is a lot of work to set that up, though... Unless you have a big clan or a big group that is on board with you to set up a private, self-hosted communications solution that is not necessarily a canned template, it may not be worth the effort to set it up.
The Big Tech companies like Discord, Whatsapp, Slack, etc. are already out there... it's easier to invite friends to Discord than to your own self-hosted communication solution. Well, on Discord, I think, it's not impossible to 'have your own server for your circle of friends', and move that to a self-hosted thing that is still connected to Discord. It is a lot of work to set that up, though... Unless you have a big clan or a big group that is on board with you to set up a private, self-hosted communications solution that is not necessarily a canned template, it may not be worth the effort to set it up.