And is heavily reliant on a single corporate sponsor, for server, protocol and client development, AND running the centralized server with basically all matrix users on it.

Wasn’t the goal decentralization?

sigh Please stop spreading FUD about Matrix? We no longer have single corporate sponsorship (our historical main sponsor pulled out because the project is so successful they didn't see why they should be the only ones paying the bill), and based on what we know of the overall network, <50% users use matrix.org.

Oh, so now you have 3 companies sponsoring you again. A short while ago only PIA had become a major sponsor (which also already happens to own two major IRC networks, and be the largest sponsor of some IRC clients)

When we’re discussing "decentralizing" things, these things become important. In those cases, we shouldn’t give such companies any influence in any way. As we’ve seen with Google a few days ago, relying on funding from a company can end up with you having to either give up your project, or follow their demands.

We haven't given our sponsors any influence in any way, and we are aiming for a lot more than 3. The sponsorship is purely in return for their logo appearing on the website and promoting them on the blog etc as sponsors.