One thing I’ve learned in life is that every time I said “no, having one central provider of that service/software will lead to faster development and better UX than investing in many providers”, I was right for a while — and then I was suddenly very wrong.
@matthew_d_green It starts out being true because the upstart has to be competitive with alternatives. Once they get market dominance they can use network effects and lock in to maintain it, so less urgency to improve the product/service. This is when you start to see new features/UI revamps that no one asked for and everyone dislikes.
With decentralized systems and open protocols ppl can easily switch to competition and do. With free software they can even undo/fork anti-features.
