"If you're particularly concerned about metadata footprint, you can run your own servers in whatever network environment you feel like"
You're not going to win any long-term support with this attitude, even if you're technically right. Like, if we're still in this "why doesn't the pleb just become a part time sysadmin" way of thinking, it's hard to think it's not just DoA.
Well, that's why the first half of the post spells out the work that we're doing to improve the metadata footprint. The second half that you're quoting explains why we didn't solve this back in 2014.
I found your explanation sufficient: obviously, you are going to find people who find fault in anything, but thanks for the transparency and the effort put into explaining the prioritization and/or workarounds which justify it.
Frankly, I'm not sure why explaining it (or the explanation) makes the situation any better.
FWIW, I'm the kind of weirdo who gets annoyed by having to add a new noscript rule for every federated instance. So I'm not exactly Matrix's target audience.
You're not going to win any long-term support with this attitude, even if you're technically right. Like, if we're still in this "why doesn't the pleb just become a part time sysadmin" way of thinking, it's hard to think it's not just DoA.