There is a major hurdle in getting people to install their own servers though.

We've seen this with OpenBazaar. It makes p2p pretty simple out of the box but if it's not in browser or a mobile app many won't even try it once.

Something like Sandstorm[0] might be able to solve this, since then a person would hypothetically only need a single server (with a nice web interface) that they install all their decentralized apps into. In practice I think modifying the apps to be compatible is too much overhead. But I think something in the same vein could work.

I'm sure @kentonv has some ideas on what the main roadblocks to adoption are.

[0] https://sandstorm.io/

Cryptocurrencies are p2p yet centralized, bittorrent is p2p, yet a few search-engines and trackers compared to clients.

>yet a few search-enginescompared to clients

Bittorrent doesn't have a search engine, so of course they are not decentralized.

> yet a few trackers compared to clients

Well, not if you count the DHT (the decentralized tracker).

well, you don’t gave to have a tracker to seed p2p, and they don’t have to cause centralisation. search engines can and should also be decentralised :)

Is there any write-up regarding Matrix plans on this topic, please? Genuinely curious.

Seconded, having the full Matrix way of architecting data synchronization available from any endpoint is something that can truly change the field.