The change to the gossip model did cause some pretty serious performance issues. They seem to be improving with time.

PWAs seem to be the future to me. I’ve got one in the oven, and there are already some really good ones (iris, snort, primal, et al.)

I honestly believe WASM will be the long term solution to many issues. Current gen PWAs run on whatever JavaScript engine the browser provides, which is destined to be a bit slower, just by its nature. WASM will give devs the ability to provide that native experience on all platforms, which solves app stores, performance issues, etc. It also means clients that can be hosted anywhere as countries block domains, etc this providing even more censorship resistance.

And the day we finally get that perfect FOSS phone, those clients will be gtg. 😉 From where I stand, this is the only solution based place to stand.