It's not even that they are a showstopper (even though they are obviously against the interests of anyone who likes the very idea of Matrix), they just seem to be completely pointless, which even a malevolent party (Meta) must admit. I mean, I am no expert in how to deal with passive-agressive bureaucrats, but you must admit they are extremely easy to bypass. Just enable a VPN and poof, you are in Europe, as far as Matrix server is concerned. So why force users to jump over these hoops, if you know they won't really stop anybody? I do get they don't want it to be convenient, but they can't deny it's pointless.
Does this mean that only matrix.org and (maybe?) other select servers will be allowed to interop?
Will a user from another matrix instance be able to use the matrix.org WhatsApp bridge or would that not be possible due to an inability to share the user's IP with WhatsApp?