Element's security UX is a disaster. They either have no UX team whatsoever or the team they do have are incompetent. Average users have no idea what it means to "verify" another user and the UX is baffling to them.
Engineers are running the show, and poisoning the UX so that only other engineers know what the hell is going on.
This is just such a staring, atypical comment of someone who has spent their entire career as a technical bod, and hasn't the faintest idea how an ordinary person uses technology.
Explaining federation (it's just like email, but we put the @ at the front and a : between uncertain nods) and key management, especially with multiple devices is the hard part.
Engineers are running the show, and poisoning the UX so that only other engineers know what the hell is going on.