I can't help but feel that .NET is slowly slipping back into its moated roots but in an open source fashion: documentation seems to prioritise mentioning Azure above all else; new application frameworks seem to be created with the sole purpose of promoting and coupling applications to Azure; successful open source libraries are being supplanted by Microsoft-owned alternatives; and a comparable non-proprietary LSP still hasn't and isn't likely to be released.
I don't think this is *completely* a bad thing. The sheer cost of development, ownership and maintenance of the language and its tooling must be extraordinary and eventually that continued investment needs to generate a return. However, I do feel it's doing a disservice to those (not me, if you think this is a personal sob story) who have spent a considerable amount of time over the past 8 years trying to educate others on how times had changed and how .NET was no longer primarily a Microsoft monopoly.
For what it's worth, I still think .NET and its ecosystem is great - especially for corporate/business software or environments that need to move fast. It's rock solid; has some of the best productivity-enhancing features out of any of the languages I've tried; and, if you're willing to pay, has some of the best tooling on the market. At the same time though, I don't think it'll be my first choice in scenarios where a driving factor of the chosen language is freedom and guaranteed future flexibility.
