I already know the zip format. Formats were not open then. You did not select archive tools based on the on-disk format it used; you selected archive tools based on a combination of software cost, compression performance, and network effects. Having multiple implementations of software that could work on the same archive format was a novelty which often resulted in legal battles, as the formats themselves were often considered proprietary information.

You still seem to be arguing over compression formats. I'm not saying there were better or worse compression formats. I'm only saying

(a) zip is a badly designed format ... see article on why

(b) the concept of a well designed file format (related to compression or not) was already well known in 1989 when zip shipped.