I think there are a few helpful things in that regard: - There are already viable and deployed alternatives to Synapse, including Conduit. Making changes that

I think there are a few helpful things in that regard: - There are already viable and deployed alternatives to Synapse, including Conduit. Making changes that would break compatibility would fragment the network. - There are already viable and widely-used alternatives to Element on the client side. I myself mostly use Nheko these days. - The structure of the Matrix protocol is such that breaks in compatibility would look very weird to users, so I think they're incentivized to avoid making such changes for their user experience's sake. - The primary selling point of Matrix (and thus Element) over other systems is precisely that it's an open protocol for communications. It seems unlikely (though not impossible) that they would do anything to harm that, but if they did, it would not look good for the company. Speaking personally, I would start looking for alternatives if they did.