There’s an interesting chat beginning at 3:05 into this episode where Chris Coyier mentions the post-Twitter clones and that Pebble is the first to tap out. He mentions that he thought Pebble’s design was better than that of Mastodon, Bluesky, etc.
It made me think of political elections. It’s not uncommon for an underdog candidate to run on a strong and principled platform. They gain a small, dedicated following and when it’s clear they won’t have the numbers needed to win, they endorse a more likely candidate in exchange for that candidate adopting their key policies.
Software isn’t a zero sum industry but there are plenty of cases of startups forcing the big dogs to up their games or adopt certain features that users come to expect.