[0]: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html
As for identity server, it was just surprising for me (from user's perspective) that when my friends ran a homeserver I still needed a lot of config on Riot for Android to connect to (homeserver URL, identity server URL). I've seen some well-known URIs [1] but sadly Riot for Android did not query them for my e-mail.
[1]: https://f-droid.org/.well-known/matrix/client
Thanks for your work on Matrix, glad that you guys are pushing the boundaries of UX of open-source software!