I think the competing offering stems from the vendetta. Based on the timeline I've seen, IRCCloud took a side on the Libera split on twitter, so Lee took a few

I think the competing offering stems from the vendetta. Based on the timeline I've seen, IRCCloud took a side on the Libera split on twitter, so Lee took a few weeks to roll out the Freenode BNC and then promptly k-lined IRCCloud.