For all those new search projects named in my OC to be viable, ES had to stop being “open source”. Before that it was not worth trying because there was one single dominant player in the market giving search away for “free”.

The same is happening with Redis after their license change.

I wouldn't really see it as an innovation blocker in that case just because someone is dominant. Or, if we really indulge in this wider sense, a lot of companies would block innovation too. Amazon as a whole for example, so I cannot really make the connection to the license.

You could of course argue that because air is free, it stops innovation in the air trade. But in the end that doesn't end in a sensible argument.