Interesting article, thanks for posting. I've used a few Matrix servers that use bridges to Discord and I've noticed a similar effect where they'll occasionally go down for extended periods of time. As nice as the idea is to use Element over Discord it's a lot easier to stick to the mainstream where people are and technical issues are at a minimum.

I'll admit this part did go a bit over my head.

What Google did to XMPP was not new. In fact, in 1998, Microsoft engineer Vinod Vallopllil explicitly wrote a text titled "Blunting OSS attacks" where he suggested to "de-commoditize protocols & applications […]. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS project’s entry into the market."

Microsoft put that theory in practice with the release of Windows 2000 which offered support for the Kerberos security protocol. But that protocol was extended. The specifications of those extensions could be freely downloaded but required to accept a license which forbid you to implement those extensions. As soon as you clicked "OK", you could not work on any open source version of Kerberos. The goal was explicitly to kill any competing networking project such as Samba.