> OpenTelemetry (or OTel) is in no way an existential threat to DataDog. Primarily because OTel is simply the substrate/protocol by which data is collected from your apps/systems.
As a vendor building in this space [1] - it definitely is. We're able to onboard teams faster to do side-by-side comparisons because they can simply point their existing Otel telemetry to both us and their existing provider with just a few lines of config. That wasn't possible before otel, and levels the playing field more than before. As otel matures, it'll continue to erode against DD's position.
It also allows us as a company to focus on what users care about (as you mention that's things like dashboarding, search performance, RUM, etc.) as opposed to spending all our time building basic integrations into every platform (though we still do plenty of work to polish places where Otel hasn't). Again, levels the playing field.