@analogindex There are at least two social networks that use webmentions natively: https://micro.blog and https://pine.blog
As for the current siloed approach, that's exactly what we're doing right now, many of us with https://brid.gy
https://commentpara.de/ is a service for anonymous replies to things, but otherwise there'd need to be something set up i.e. for your mum to use, such as https://micro.blog or one of the other hosted IndieWeb platforms