Hi, back after few days. I had quite a lot going on, and the "you sound angry" hint probably meant that I was better-off not responding straight away :)
First of all, thanks for acknowledging the lack of focus of the project. I am happy to read that this is something being addressed, less so that the prime motivator for this is a lack of funds.
To me (and, I guess, to most), something like Matrix, which aims to become the broker of all our messaging needs, has an implied mandate to put reliability and consistency before all else. Your users' relationships, and sometimes, life? can be put at risk because of unreliable message delivery. Chasing new features and niche use-cases before the basics are covered by a sound theory and a stable implementation has always struck me as short-sighted: you can be sure that users burnt by over-promise and marketing hyperboles will never return. Enthusiasts and early-adopters who attempt to embark their circles onto the non-proprietary protocols exactly have one shot at it and a very high bar to pass. Contributors like yourself should also be aware that this "overly-optimistic attitude" insulates yourselves from potential contributors, in particular among the "theory/hard-problems loving" crowds, who are generally more suspicious about the kind or projects they engage with. That same crowd that could come to help with the interminable reliability issues.
> However, whether you like it or not, we fixed it. The federation problems were resolved before the time of Matrix 1.0 back in 2019
> This is demonstrably false, and it's particularly obtuse to be whining about it in the comments on a post on Matrix 2.0
You see, this is the kind of attitude that gives me little hope for the future success and adoption of Matrix amongst the general public. No later than a few days ago, using Element X on the client side, from a New Vector-managed account, sending a message to a(n up to date) federated server took 9 hours. I could top that up with many other issues with threads, spaces, client glitches, … but that's not the point. This is simply unacceptable for something branded as a mature product/protocol on par with the commercial offerings. I am not the only one reporting such issues and their reoccurrence. Every week, people on self-hosting forums give-up on Matrix for this or other reasons. Things are not going nearly as well as you make them to be, and whether you are honest and in denial, or malicious for the sake of protecting your business/career doesn't matter to me. What matters is that there is an end in sight to this and Matrix 2.0 isn't it.
> There are >65k servers on the public network, of which about 2000 are run by Element (New Vector).
I'm curious about the fraction of active users whose account is hosted by a NV-operated server vs the rest (as defined by the active users of servers federating with those). A vast majority of the Matrix accounts I see in the wild are hosted by NV (and I admit that my perception is skewed due to my involvement revolving around the opensource communities).
> I'm sure you're a lovely person, but you come across as a complete asshole here
I am critical of a work of love of yours, to which you dedicated a decade+ of your life, I can relate to the feeling. But for the record, my admiration for your dedication and availability answering messages here is legitimate.