Chills

Agreed on your first point. It is not a trivial thing to do it well. 
 
As for your second point: Yes and no. There are lots of tools out there but none of them seamlessly integrates in to Affinity like Adobe Bridge integrates  the Adobe CS suite. There are lots of near misses out there that people use and work around.  @loukash was promoting PixlPath but noted he had to use several other tools, from other places,with it.  It is interesting that Adobe then went on to do Lightroom in parallel to Bridge.  I suppose Adobe had a huge Photoshop market that never really used the other CS tools.  I don't know the split Affinity has between Photo, Publisher and Designer and people buying all three.   
If they added 30% on to the cost of the V3 suite to include a DAM how many people would go for it? 
If you only wanted one of Photo, Publisher or Designer  would you pay double to cost to get the DAM as well? 
For me buying all three the DAM added on to integrate and asset management is a no brainer.

Probably because they are currently at least two orders of magnitude smaller than Adobe Corporation and they therefore cannot do all the things that the Adobe does.
That said, there are already plenty of other competent non-Adobe softwares out there that can probably meet your needs.
 

So it is zero use as a DAM for affinity.
It needs to be on Mac and Windows (never mind the Linux debate)
It needs to be able to write/modify  (extended) Exif data, and IPTC metadata,  have a full hierarchical  IPTC key wording set up  that is modifiable and extendable. These are basics.   Note what is needed is a DAM that handles a LOT more than just photos. Like Adobe Bridge.  plus Lightroom hence my suggestion of Light-Bridge.
 

So it is zero use as a DAM for affinity.
It needs to be on Mac and Windows (never mind the Linux debate)
It needs to be able to write/modify  (extended) Exif data, and IPTC metadata,  have a full hierarchical  IPTC key wording set up  that is modifiable and extendable. These are basics.   Note what is needed is a DAM that handles a LOT more than just photos. Like Adobe Bridge.  plus Lightroom hence my suggestion of Light-Bridge.
 

You don't need to explain that to me. This is why Chris has implemented this:

I wasn't apparently the first one with this feature request, but we've exchanged several e-mails with Chris discussing the benefits and a few bugs.
Just last week I also noticed the "Allow All" button which was likely added in one of the recent updates. This may be a good feature for some, but for me there are file types I don't need to see in a catalog, hence I'm adding the extensions manually for now.

A first issue I can see is that PixlPath is only Apple, while Serif would also have to make it for Windows. I suspect that the Apple systems already offered most of the frameworks to make the app. I don't know if this would be the same under Windows, and with which degree of compatibility.
Paolo
 

Well, you need to get the (ground) bait out there to get people snapping at it before you can hook them and reel them in..

TO save confusion and derailing of the Linux thread, see the Lightroom or DAM thread here
 
 

Serif’s management and the company have never managed to get to the point where they also make a DAM, where the company or the software suite survives. Serif was founded in 1987, and since then, many similar companies have outgrown their early stages and evolved into large, tech-strong players—some even becoming giants. Serif chose a business model and product quality that effectively set a low ceiling for everyone involved. The company has simply never evolved.
Serif still develops too little with too few programmers and has not succeeded in securing the revenue and the team needed to create everything you desire. On the contrary, they have now, for the second time, had to allow themselves to be acquired – the first time was a failure, and this time we will have to wait and see. They have even had to start over with Affinity after the Plus series, as the previous model was no longer viable.
They have not succeeded in outgrowing their teenage room, having listened too little to their customers and too little to the market, and now both they and the customers find themselves, having been acquired by Canva, with an uncertain future. In other words, it is not a super-competent company, whose lack of ability and vision has become everyone's problem – especially the customers'.
In short, no matter how small a project you think a DAM is, everything is complex, and with Affinity, Serif's veteran customers are now in the Third Imposed Uncertainty, where answers to questions are more a matter of guesswork than anything else. But you can see that Serif's business model has never been able to deliver the goods, whether measured in features or on time. And there you have the answer to whether enterprises out there will follow Canvas’s dream of Affinity taking market share from Adobe. No, they won’t.

The discussion started as Affinity Lightroom but I think it should be a light-bridge.DAM.  That is a cataloguing system for images but also  for all sorts of assets.   Unfortunately many Affinity users are photographers who only see Affinity Photo and want a photo catalogue system with Photoshop editing capabilities. .   
Many of us are publishers/designers who live in Publisher but need to access not just catalogues of images  but many other artifacts and assets that go into a magazine. IE text files,  sometimes video and audio files, fonts. templates etc.   Likewise for designers.   I used inDesign a lot but rarely opened photoshop.  
What we don't usually need is photo editing in this sort of DAM.  So the ability to go into Affinity Light-Bridge (working title there will have to be a different name or Adobe will sue 🙂 )   and then click on an image and open it is A-Photo would be good. 
 

Well, you need to get the (ground) bait out there to get people snapping at it before you can hook them and reel them in..

Sounds a bit fishy to me! 

The discussion started as Affinity Lightroom but I think it should be a light-bridge.DAM.  That is a cataloguing system for images but also  for all sorts of assets.   Unfortunately many Affinity users are photographers who only see Affinity Photo and want a photo catalogue system with Photoshop editing capabilities. .   
Many of us are publishers/designers who live in Publisher but need to access not just catalogues of images  but many other artifacts and assets that go into a magazine. IE text files,  sometimes video and audio files, fonts. templates etc.   Likewise for designers.   I used inDesign a lot but rarely opened photoshop.  
What we don't usually need is photo editing in this sort of DAM.  So the ability to go into Affinity Light-Bridge (working title there will have to be a different name or Adobe will sue 🙂 )   and then click on an image and open it is A-Photo would be good. 
 

TO save confusion and derailing of the Linux thread, see the Lightroom or DAM thread here
 
 

Hopefully their DAM will incorporate StudioLink too and be able to use Photo or Designer right inside the DAM if needed.

No need to get defensive, I was just explaining that a LOT of people pay for Linux.
This is the problem with a lot of Linux people the are religious and have no understanding of how the world, particularly software, works.
Nothing is free.  That is a fact. There is a cost to everything. Not always monetary but there is a cast.  
When calculating costs if you pay a programmer    $50 an hour the actual cost to the company is going to be about  $150 an hour. So the cost for  maintaining a Linux for use in the company is not free. MS has largely automated this for windows and you don't have to find the packages and compile them etc.  For Linux Red Hat (and others)  will monitor   the forums and packages suppliers etc for bug reports and updates etc.  This take time and costs money ($150 an hour) They collect the patches  check them,  do a build and test (as much as can be)  and do releases.    I suspect these will lag behind others because they want to make sure there are no problems or surprises. Then when knowing things are reasonably stable they will release the build to their clients.    Companies will and do pay for this service.  Not the software but the maintenance and testing service.   Time is money.  They pay for the time and expertise.
 

I use 90% Publisher and 5% each Design and Photo. I 100% agree with you.    I am still using LR 6.14 the last standalone version of LR. I spoke to Adobe about it (dace to face) a couple of years ago, and they lied to me about light room.  There is a thread on this forum about Affinity doing a Light-Bridge DAM  (not just a photo catalogue) see that discussion rather than diverting this thread. There were some leaks from Affinity about a "Lightroom" sort of thing, which was more hopeful than their comments on Linux. (so far)
 

I'd love to see more professional createive apps for Linux. Affinity, obviously, but also Moho, Clip Studio and Cavalry. Given the competitive pricing of Affinity I'd buy the whole bundle once more for Linux.
Windows and Macs currently work just fine, but there is a steady push towards more and more deeply ingrained, cloud based services, resource intensive (and mostly totally unnecessary) AI tools and generally things that both companies are forcing down on You, no matter Your opinion and needs. Linux seems like the best third option if You want more independence. Unfortunately, unless You work for VFX and are happy with just Blender, Houdini, Maya or Fusion, there are severe limitations. 2D motion graphics and layout / design really much better linux support.

Canva bought Serif. Linux didn't make a competing offer.

If I was Affinity, I would seriously contemplate this offer...

Just to add to the dogpile, after Microsoft's 365 subscription price increase debacle, I'm ready to tell them to take a flying leap. I'd give my left kidney for Linux-native versions of the Affinity suite. I've already moved a couple of machines to Linux, and the only software I need on a regular basis that requires Windows is the Affinity suite.
That said, and as much as I'm disgusted with Microsoft, the Affinity software makes it worth suffering through Microsoft's mess... That's how good Affinity is.

They already have, several times.
 
More to the point it contains the heat.  People keep opening new threads for this anyway so having one to point them to (and close the other threads) helps to reduce the clutter and keep the (pointless) chatter in one place.  Close this and people just keep opening new ones without a place to corral them to.
 
Windows 10 stops getting security patches later this year, so bad idea to start setting up new instances of it now.  It has run its course - if you need a Windows VM, better to start off with 11.  If you can't do that for whatever reason, and need to run 10, then make sure it is cut off from the internet (but note that you won't be able to activate the Affinity universal license or to use the various sync features they offer if you do that).

I've pruned some posts, so this is a reminder to please keep it on topic and refrain from personal attacks.

That isn't true.  Some of us have been doing critical systems for decades. The hard questions aren't that hard. It does require engineering discipline.  Actually I discovered last year that they are starting to retire are retiring a system I was involved with doing 29 years ago.  It was defect (bug) free all that time.  
 
No, they weren't found.  The first 5 had got through into the wild.  the Uni team was not expecting any to get through as the software and documentation did not match. things have tightened up but no one has any idea what else has got in.  As I said when they kernel team looked the then found several ghost contributors.  they had not known about.  They don't know how many other before or since.  That is for the kernel who is about 1/3 off a distribution.  There is even less control over that software.  Do you really know the source of every package?  Do you test it? 
 
This is not true.  It is far more difficult to get malware (As opposed to intentional marketing/demo/advertising bloatware) in to professional software than open source, Though I have worked on professional, not consumer, systems. 
 
We agree on that one!!!! 
Note whilst I go on at length about why affinity won't do Linux, I am not a Windows fanboy.  As I said above, I would rather have Solaris.  
 

It's free as in freedom, not price

"The term "free software" does not refer to the monetary cost of the software at all, but rather whether the license maintains the software user's civil liberties ("free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”)." -- https://www.fsf.org/