It's no wonder, that the usage of OSS version was pretty low, when few were able to build it and even if they managed that, the resulting application was broken every few releases.
Both VS Code and Chromium are easy to build, due to their nature and popularity, they are available prebuilt from many sources. I would install "unofficial" Chromium build from my distribution's repository, I wouldn't keep my code in unofficial Sourcegraph build from some random person on Github. Comparing them is rather unfair, but there's another issue that stopped OSS adoption.
For a long time, official Sourcegraph Docker image came with a 10 seat free license, which suited many people and they weren't looking for alternatives like OSS build.
I would argue that announcing license change and closing of your product as a small block in change log file or when someone mentions the problem in Github Issues is not adequate for such a change.
Not using open-first principles, restricting the product by using enterprise only plugins, which others mentioned under this post, not providing open source builds and changing license without preceding announcement, while previously using open source terminology for some feel-good free marketing leaves a bitter taste. Especially with so many companies doing this right now due to interest rates.
https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/issues/43231 https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/issues/43203 https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/issues/6790 https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/issues/6783