"All your base are belong to us", Zoom CEO was quoted as saying.
Zoom Acquires Keybase
521–530 of 751 posts
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
why not look at the problem the other way around? I don't have much respect for zoom's security practices, while I do have much respect for the keybase team. Perhaps this is Zoom's way of admitting that there is no way they can just solve the problem internally by keeping doing what they're doing and they need to get some fresh blood and build upon good practices designed outside their current culture.
It seems that we live in an era where if you made bad decisions in the past, you can never be trusted to make good decisions ever again. Even if you own your bad decisions and show lots of improvement. Nope. Once a pariah, always a pariah.
> It seems that we live in an era where
This phrasing is sophistry: there has never been an "era" where this was not true. Humans suck; humans have never not sucked.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#523For years people have been begging Keybase to allow them to pay them for the service and Chris Coyne always refused. Now they've lost their independence and they're owned by a communication company that has [edit: the majority of] its dev team in China. I use Keybase to talk to my friend in China since it's one of the few services they don't block. This is a pretty disappointing outcome.
Losing their independence was from the beginning the most likely outcome of building something that's hard to monetize like Keybase on the VC funding model. FWIW, I doubt Keybase offering a paid plan would have raised revenue that's significant compared to their burn, so Chris was probably right to not spend resources figuring out a paid offering. For raising their next round, having $5K in revenue from a paid plan few people buy might well have been worse than having $0.
The VC funding model is terrible for most open source projects. With a few exceptions, you end up with an acquisition that ends or repurposes the project, or an Open Core project. And a VC-funded Open Core project will end up trying as hard as it can to have everyone need to buy the paid version, since that's clearly the way to optimize revenue and eventually the slippery slope will get you there. I don't blame folks for taking VC; it was easy to get, and there aren't a lot of alternative funding models that can pay the multiple fulltime staff that might be required to create what one wants to create.
I don't think VC funding as it currently exists is consistent with running an open source company according to my values, which is why we're not taking venture funding for Zulip. Obviously, being scrappy, applying for NSF grants, and spending my own money have very real downsides both personally and for our growth, especially when every competitor has VC funding, but it also means that I can ensure Zulip continues existing as a real open source project for the long run.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#524I worked at OkCupid long after Chris Coyne and Max Krohn abandoned it. From the vestigial remains of the founders' code and features it was clear what their main objectives were: have fun with cool tech, on the dime of VC funding. As soon as they got bored, they moved on to the next thing. KeyBase is the same pattern. I mean, good for them, they're successful by any measure - how they spend their time and how much money they have. But this outcome was to be expected.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#525I guess moving to Matrix?
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#526[deleted]
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#527This is really concerning given Zoom’s clear lack of security expertise—there’s no good outcome here.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#528Given the security concerns around Zoom, and the apparent lack of QC that might have prevented those concerns, this news is appalling. I love Keybase, it's used by many people, but I suspect it will now die a quick death. More accurately I suspect it will slide into a coma - not quite dead, but not in wide use anymore either.
why not look at the problem the other way around? I don't have much respect for zoom's security practices, while I do have much respect for the keybase team. Perhaps this is Zoom's way of admitting that there is no way they can just solve the problem internally by keeping doing what they're doing and they need to get some fresh blood and build upon good practices designed outside their current culture.
Has an acquisition ever worked like that in practice? I’ve heard that github might qualify but... Keybase ain’t no github.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#529I trusted Keybase. They sold me. I deleted my account. For the same reason I deleted my account when LinkedIn sold my data and trust to Microsoft.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#530For years people have been begging Keybase to allow them to pay them for the service and Chris Coyne always refused. Now they've lost their independence and they're owned by a communication company that has [edit: the majority of] its dev team in China. I use Keybase to talk to my friend in China since it's one of the few services they don't block. This is a pretty disappointing outcome.
Fingers crossed they open source the server portion at least -> https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/24105