Keybase being a traditional centralized platform was/is precisely the issue: Single point of failure and trust in one company. All it took was Zoom acquiring them to make the whole system obsolete.

We need something with logical centralization but independent of any single actor or company.

Like an open source operating system that ships with VPN in the kernel, and can be managed by a UI in a Docker container

Blockchain development is funded by VCs looking to stay relevant.

It’s software; there’s no panacea and thousands of options for solving problems; blockchain is just one.

Maybe. The interface was there but in general it had created a security and usability dilemma.

For convenience over security, it gave the choice of storing your private key on their servers. If Zoom was to one day shut Keybase down, your private key is now gone. Otherwise for security over convenience, if you store it on your own computer you're more likely to lose it.

Those trade-offs in Keybase's key management is probably why it did not take off including that they were on a VC payroll and not making any money at all from the service. It was only a matter of time that without Zoom, they would end up shutting down.

> If Zoom was to one day shut Keybase down, your private key is now gone. Otherwise for security over convenience, if you store it on your own computer you're more likely to lose it.

I'm not so sure about this. Each of my devices absolutely has a key stored on it that is offline capable. Loss of keybase servers would matter but not the extent that you're claiming, from what I can tell. https://book.keybase.io/security#your-private-keys-are-only-...

Economic games are part of the security, Keybase demonstrates this clearly.