This seems to be the case. You have warpstream who is a former sponsor of Benthos and integrated their product DEEPLY now feeling left out when they talk about things happening in 12 hours and imagine what else could happen in more time; I'd imagine a purchase like this is months in the making. They wrote this blog post that reads like a scorned ex-lover and ends with we did it because you made us.

Over on X, you have the CEO of Confluent writing 18 tweets trying to stay relevant and throw shade at his two competitors drinking his milkshake. I like how he snuck in "Kafka will continue to be the default standard and reference implementation" in that stream of thought.