I think Matrix only makes sense if you‘re already using instant messaging of some sort. Either discord, whatsapp, signal, what have you…
If you are using one of these services, there is a high chance that your data is sold, traded and used for all kinds of purposes, from training AI to manipulating your life choices (or as simple as selling something to you).
If a person is not using social media at all (and has an offline friend circle), then they should happily stay away from any of these products, federated/foss same as the others. Simply because social media is addictive.
But for those (like me) who don’t make friends easily offline, social media makes sense. And for those, it is far better to trust db0 or whatever the admins name is of an instance, than google,
has only one answer. Hell yes!
Element is a for profit company and therefore not the best idea if you want to go fully without data collection I assume. But then you also need to keep all smart devices in your home from calling home, you need a rooted android phone or similar, etc.
So I propose that we do our best, keeping the megacorps from collecting and selling our data without a penny of the profits going to us. In the meantime, we make compromises where necessary. If element is the only „usable“ client for you, let them have at it for the time being. Especially on ios, you‘re transparent to apple anyway and besides you don’t see the apps in development until they leave testflight (iirc).
Let me know if you have any further questions. Have a good one. :)