@landley This is not just a feature of Microsoft buying online services. My team was mildly involved in a handful of product acquisitions when I was at Microsoft and none of those products exists today as more than a checkbox in Windows or Exchange.
But, then, it's not just Microsoft. I've been with two startups that were acquired (Twistlock by Palo Alto, StackRox by Red Hat) and both of those products dramatically lost velocity in the years post-acquisition. In my mind, there aren't a ton of great acquisition stories in technology.
@landley TBH, there have always been other strong contenders for the role of "THE git hosting platform". Bitbucket has been a strong runner at least once, GitLab has consistently had a better feature set (although a smaller user base )...
@thekernelinyellow@landley but one can certainly still Self-Host and even if one doesn't need all the bells and whistles of GitLab, Gitea exists and basically provides the same results.
The only reason I do use GitHub is because I know and desperately want Microsoft to loose as much money hosting my shit whilst not acting in a openly malicious and legally liable way.
Make them deal with DDoS'ng KiwiFarms fans that dislike the fact that their hategrooming site gets yeeted by outcalling hosters.
@landley I disagree that Skype was The VoIP service by the time Microsoft bought them. There were better alternatives by 2011. Even Second Life had VoIP for three years by then.
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