Don’t know about Teamspeak, but you never HAD to pay for Mumble. You could just run the server on any machine you wanted, including the same one as your client.

I assume you still can, for that matter.

That was always part of the enshittification formula. The final stage after exploiting users is to exploit business customers to the breaking point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I agree in general, but search feels like an odd example. That space has been dominated by ad companies since even before the internet (e.g., Yellow Pages).

Came for the decentralization, stayed for the nonconsensual lemon party redirects.