Selfhosted

Somehow you are describing an „email“…

Problem with you approach is, that you have an easier maintenance, but your users need an additional tool. Especially when grandparents should use this, you should stick to what is there.

In theory you could host a matrix server and install some bridges like whatsapp, discord, etc. probably you would be able to create a matrix room and invite your granny via the whatsapp integration, your friends via discord, etc.

Disclaimer: I did not set up such solution - this just came to mind for your situation.

For the notifications I would use https://ntfy.sh/ but that doesn't give you the return channel.

You should look into setting up a matrix server, it will be more challenging than setting up jellyfin, but then you're gonna have an experience that's comparable to discord.

For your grandma, or other non-tech-savy users I recommend checking out the matrix client FluffyChat, which looks like a traditional messaging app

This exact situation is why I eventually shut down access to my media server to only my household. I had the same setup for many years and it just got to be a clusterfuck of people messaging me that things were broken, not working how they wanted, need to have more features, aren't working fast enough, etc. I work in IT. I get enough of that when I'm clocked in, I don't need it at home too.

Good luck though, OP.

I started one month ago using sonarr, radarr and all that stuff. It has integration with telegram, maybe you could create a group or a channel. It’s not selfhosted but more or less is user friendly thinking about grandma-level

@Shiggs @selfhosted https://overseerr.dev/ may be what you are looking for. Handles all requests and there's a ticketing and messaging system built in

Matrix is right there. I recommend the matrix-setup-ansible repo. If full-fledge matrix is too much, you can use revolt which runs on the same protocol but has a much simpler mode of operation.

Matrix enables you to manage permissions like on discord, so you can even have a channel for announcements and a chat room where your users can interact with you.

If you want service interaction, matrix has many wrappers in many languages enabling you to make bots as you wish, and I'm sure the things you need already exist and are already made, so you would just need to instantiate the bot too.

The only real risk is if your users try to join big rooms federated from matrix.org. your server will start syncing a huge user list and their profile picture and it's basically toast.