Yeah, Matrix is a very, very hard sell. I mean, “normal” people (for lack of a better term) are put off by Mastodon, and Matrix is a hundred times more complicated to join. I’m also not sure what it would look like to use Matrix the way I use Discord. Perhaps there is functionality in Element/Matrix I have never explored since I use it more for messaging and group chat, not for communities with multiple channels like IRC/Discord/Slack.
In any case, Discord is too entrenched to be replaced by something that is merely technically superior, or even more user-friendly. Realistically, you can’t migrate entire communities if they’re bigger than a tight-knit IRL friend group, and even that is hard. That seems to be the only reason X still exists.
This will have no effect on torrenting or other P2P protocols. Your IP address will still be out there.
I’ve never heard of DMCA warnings based on DNS requests. That doesn’t really make sense.