Yeah and they will not know it exist until you try it out and let them know about the app and help them try it out and get in contact with you.
Unlike WhatsApp that has millions to throw in marketing, come preinstalled on devices and by know "everyone uses it" other smaller projects that are not making money out of you need your help to do the "marketing" part
To show you that it doesn't have to be a forever alone experience, in your case perhaps it will be, if you are the kind that have to run after the people close to you and accommodate to their requirements for them not to leave you behind and forgotten perhaps you are already alone...
I would say this is the normal behavior and without this apps wouldn't work properly or connect in background, ex. to receive messages in chat apps and display a notification ex. when the system wakes them up via push notifications
My personal experience: 121 chats (just my family account I have several other accounts)
Spam from the same address will appear as a single chat, and you can block the contact and never receive more spam from that address
Since spammers constantly change address you might what to tweak the "show classic email" option in Advanced settings, if you set it to "accepted contacts only" only classic email from contacts you have accepted a chat already will show up in Delta Chat so contact requests from new contacts will no show up, which is perfect if you only want your dad's messages to appear in the app
Your parents can use something else to message you, for other people they can switch to SMS in worse case, just uninstall the app with a goodbye message once you are not there there will be some real reasons for other people to join you elsewhere,
There was a time where there was no WhatsApp and no one died because of it, true there might be some extra inconveniences but the question is if you have the will to do the change, I deleted WhatsApp and things are OK so far I am not using Signal either, I use Delta Chat and email mainly
In my case I was not using it for family but for one club where they make announcements, anyways uninstalled it and now relay on two people of the club that also have DeltaChat and I have to ask them every time to forward me the information 😅
The app allows to easily add multiple profiles and switch between them, besides the classic email profile, you can tap in your avatar at the top left of the chat list and add a chat profile for secure encrypted chatting, and join a community group for testing and asking questions about delta chat:
Yes you can, if you use an existing classic email account of yours with it, the anonymous free chatmail accounts can only be used with encryption, otherwise spammers could abuse the service
You will see the conversation as a chat while your dad will see it as normal replies to his emails
This sucks, at least Tesla was electric, fuck cars...
Not really, I like Delta Chat because the usability, no other app gave me the same peace of mind and reliability in bad connectivity areas (which I find myself often)
As for the family and friends that use it with me, they certainly don't use it because encryption and privacy, I don't even advertise the privacy and freedom much or try to make them uninstall whatever other apps they use for chatting, they use it because it is the way to reach me and it solves a problem for them.
And Delta Chat is not XMPP, at least for now