I would gladly pay $10/month to support Element and Matrix.
They have some minor benefits and flair, although the page hasn't been updated in awhile, so I don't know how many are still valid.
Sadly none of the rewards are updated and the flair is no longer given out; at this point it makes sense to just see it as a donation.
How can I have more thsn one homeserver watched? Do I need to run N independent client apps (e.g. Element and Fluffychat), with each pointed at one homeserver?
It is very hard to find out any details of what is handled where in Matrix. Nobody in rooms devoted to services acknowledges questions, never mind answering any.
That said, the Matrix->Matrix migration tools (https://ems.element.io/tools/matrix-migration) can be used outside of the setup flow, to help migrate your existing chats to new accounts. So people can always use those separately from host setup, if needed.
I have not dug into where it crashes, yet. Element rooms have got so slow, lately, I hardly use it anymore. Nobody will say who is responsible. The room owner? My homeserver? Others' homeservers? Matrix.org? All I ever see is the spinner, with no hint as to what or who it is waiting on, or any way evident to ever find out.
On the Android app, meanwhile, rooms have taken to keeping a series of one or more very old messages always displayed at the bottom where current messages are supposed to be, taking up as much as half the screen, thus far.
It also makes a noise every 30 seconds that I cannot turn off, spamming my notifications log to tell me it has polled its server again. I have found that force-killing the app makes this go away. I don't know if this makes it unable to alert me to timely messages from others on my homeserver. The constant noises make it hard to care.
Fluffychat has the same noise problems, so the notification spam is probably in the client library. The sticky ancient message problem is only in Android Element.
In terms of "slow rooms" - we'd need more details to advise. A bug report on github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues would give us something to go on.
In terms of stuck messages on Element Android - this sounds like a bug which was fixed months ago. Please upgrade.
In terms of getting a notification every time the app syncs - I have no idea what would cause that, nor have I heard of it. Please file a bug at https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues.
But hope springs eternal: <https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/16599>.
The stuck messages are still there, in a newly upgraded Android Element 1.1.0, same as in the last two upgrades to 1.0.14 marked (2021-01-30) and 1.0.17 (2021-02-14). Other people report the same: <https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/2494>
Android Element 1.1.0 seems to spam the notifications log with "Listening for events", "parcel size: 992", a bit less often than previous versions. I see it now at 22:16, 22:17, 22:18, 22:20, 22:35, 22:43, 22:49, 22:51, 22:53, 22:56, 23:00, 23:21. Better than 2x/minute.
I can imagine that the slowness (endless spinner when scrolling back in a room transcript) might be a consequence of delays in my homeserver -- privacytools.io -- but the app offers no hint as to where the stall is. Does my homeserver have anything to do with slowness of rooms ? I also don't see any way to check the version of Synapse running on the homeserver. Should I be able to find that?
An example of a very slow scrollback room is #_oftc_#mobian:matrix.org.
In fact the migrator only works on the web apps at the moment (not desktop or mobile).
That said, even if the in-app migrator isn't available to other clients, people are obviously free to set up Element Nickel or Home direct from the website.