[Panino]

Just to play devil's advocate for the sake of discussion I'll say, the main benefit is "education" for designers of actual secure messaging apps such as those from Open Whisper Systems.

I remember Moxie writing about intentionally using insecure messaging apps that have great UI for the purpose of learning what non-technical users want, and he then built stuff that was both secure and usable.

I think it's interesting how apps like Cryptocat (on one side) and those from e.g. Open Whisper Systems (on another) play off each other. Some secure messaging apps were pressured to up their UI game, and now some "usable" apps are pressured to up their security game or shut down. Whatsapp got X25519 via the TextSecure protocol, and now Cryptocat is shutting down. It sends a message that designers of new apps will be competing against successful deployments of messengers that are both secure and usable.

There are still things like Telegram that are apparently big, but I think the trend is clear.