Will consumer facing open source become a runaway train?

In certain spaces we have seen OpenSource become a runaway train: linux kernel, sqlite, postgres and many other projects. All of these projects have one thing in common, it's not where the money is. The money is in the direct contact with end users.

As far as I know, there aren't any open source projects which are ubiquitous in the consumer facing space. I think that there is a chance that NextCloud could become a runaway train vs. Microsoft Teams, Google workspace etc. Some reasons...

## Simple to use & signup Through providers like Storage Share by Hetzner, it's a simple click, provide card info, start using experience for NC. One could argue even simpler than getting Google Workspace to work!

Also, it's about 5% of the price of Google Workspace for 8 users.

## Big open source improvements Companies like Deutchetelekom have engineers submitting pull requests to improve their code since NC is now an integral part of MagentaCloud (over 2M users). Thousands of universities are using NC, they too have engineers submitting pull requests.

*I wonder if there are any SF startups using NC and potentially interested in improving the code.*

Is it possible that eventually, there are more high quality engineers interested in improving the NC code than there are at Microsoft or Google? I think there is a chance.

I love the beginning of your text here. You and your friend have an idea and you say, "Let's do it!" I am so glad that we could help you do it! I may have to check this out when I get the chance. (Not a company endorsement -- I am personally interested in language acquisition.) --Katie