I actually love Zoom as a product - far and away the best product in its class and this move likely makes sense for Zoom.
The disappointment comes from the loss of Keybase and what it could have been.
The main problem is Zoom having most of its development done via companies based in China. This means it is no longer possible for Keybase to achieve its original goal (and whatever encryption they add cannot fix this core problem).
It's one thing to accept the risk for video conferencing, but it's another to accept for an encryption ID standard.
I agreed with Chris Coyne's comments on HN a while back when he argued that the closed source server code didn't matter because of how they handled the encryption (when compared to Signal). While that's still true from a technical security standpoint, it looks like it does matter in a larger sense because this kind of sale shows that you can't really trust a company to act in its user's interests long-term.
The disappointment comes from the loss of Keybase and what it could have been.
The main problem is Zoom having most of its development done via companies based in China. This means it is no longer possible for Keybase to achieve its original goal (and whatever encryption they add cannot fix this core problem).
It's one thing to accept the risk for video conferencing, but it's another to accept for an encryption ID standard.
I agreed with Chris Coyne's comments on HN a while back when he argued that the closed source server code didn't matter because of how they handled the encryption (when compared to Signal). While that's still true from a technical security standpoint, it looks like it does matter in a larger sense because this kind of sale shows that you can't really trust a company to act in its user's interests long-term.