To make it clear to those who are misunderstanding: that’s a list of companies that host matrix for you. They do it at a good price.
If you and your friends chip, it’ll be a few bucks a pop per month to have your own private server with voice chat rooms and video chat rooms.
It’s all opensource and contributes to the ecosystem. Best of all, no age verification because the data is yours.
Can Matrix do emotes like Discord yet?
YES there’s a client that adds support for GIFs and custom emojis https://commet.chat/
Looks promising, but I need an iOS client too.
Fluffychat does this I believe