I’ll provide honest feedback on this topic, even though we are not directly impacted.
I think Atlassian has recently been heading in an unfortunate direction by “taking inspiration” from what works in the marketplace and introducing it as a native feature in Jira/Confluence.
This is just the latest in a series of announcements over the past few months, during which several features have been released, affecting different segments of the marketplace.
Some examples:
- RFC 32: Confluence Content Customization
- RFC 37: Embeds as a New Confluence Content Type
- Deprecation Notice: Deprecation of the External Asset Platform
- RFC 64: Forms in Jira Software Projects
This direction will become a problem because it will drastically reduce investments in the marketplace. Who would invest time and resources knowing that Atlassian could add similar features to their product, effectively undermining all your efforts?
In my opinion, the biggest issue is not so much that Atlassian “takes inspiration” and releases new features similar to those developed by third-party vendors but the unfair competition that results. Atlassian has access to data, resources, and contacts that a third-party vendor cannot obtain.
Furthermore, what’s even more problematic is the native integration of features that third parties cannot achieve due to numerous limitations on APIs and available extension points.
These limitations make it impossible to compete on a level playing field, as first-party features will always be superior to third-party ones. This leads to ongoing friction with customers who don’t understand why certain features cannot be delivered.
If Atlassian wants to continue in this direction, the only solution that could save the marketplace is providing vendors with the same APIs that Atlassian uses for its products. This way, truly integrated features can be created on par with those developed by Atlassian, fostering an ecosystem of fair competition.
I’ll close with a provocation: why does Atlassian continue to invest so many resources in developing unfairly competitive features while doing so little to address the thousands of open reports on ECO? There are issues that have been open for decades, features that vendors have been requesting for years, and bugs that are often reclassified as “suggestions” so they can be ignored indefinitely. If the goal is to build a fair ecosystem, that’s where it should start.