> One of the big problems is that folks judge Matrix based on the legacy Element apps, which have now been succeeded by Element X
Which is mobile-only. Element's UX on desktop is still a joke.
> These days, the priority at Element is providing a self-hosted, decentralised WhatsApp and Teams replacement for governments... and once we get sustainable doing that, we'll be able to spend time building community features once again.
In other words, you don't have the community's best interests in mind, but we should rest safe because you'll have their best interests in mind at some point in the future, maybe.
Not very reassuring.
> Which is mobile-only. Element's UX on desktop is still a joke.
Actually, we span up Element X on web a few weeks ago and are currently figuring out how to transplant EW's view layer (which is fine) onto matrix-rust-sdk (which is more than fine): https://matrix.org/blog/2025/06/05/this-week-in-matrix-2025-... etc.
> In other words, you don't have the community's best interests in mind, but we should rest safe because you'll have their best interests in mind at some point in the future, maybe.
I'd argue that by having spent >10 years building out Matrix and Element as open source, we've demonstrated that we have the FOSS community very much in mind. But we'll only be able to continue doing that as our day jobs if we can pay our salaries, and the way to do that appears to be to sell enterprise Matrix distributions to Governments. Once we get financially sustainable doing that, we'll be able to focus more on the community again.
> Not very reassuring.
Au contraire, mon capitaine; I find it very reassuring that Element might finally be approaching a position to keep working on improving Matrix indefinitely :D