5 ms·

This is exactly why Slack is not a defensible product. 1) The UI/interaction/UX can (and obviously will) be replicated, which has been slack's biggest value pr

by mbesto 10y ago

This is exactly why Slack is not a defensible product. 1) The UI/interaction/UX can (and obviously will) be replicated, which has been slack's biggest value proposition. 2) There's no "stickiness" for companies. None of the data in chat is really a "system of record" and the switching costs are minimal. 3rd party bots/integrations are the only thing that really make it sticky for companies. 3) The IP isn't really all that interesting. Chat based systems have been around since day 1 of the TCP/IP protocol and it's design patterns are pretty well known. In other words, the tech can be replicated. 4) It's not solving a core technology problem for most business without introducing additional problematic externalities. http://www.businessinsider.com/i-used-to-be-obsessed-with-slack-but-now-im-dropping-it-completely-heres-why-2016-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/i-used-to-be-obsessed-with-sl...

unethical_ban 10y ago
What do you mean, not defensible? As in, it shouldn't exist, or there's no way it can be profitable long-term? I think it's a great product experience, but as you say, without adding more value, it can be replicated by Zulip/Rocket.Chat/Mattermost/Cisco Spark/Microsoft Team/ you name it.
- vehementi 10y ago
  They meant not profitable long term implicitly as it is easily replicatable
- tedunangst 10y ago
  As in it doesn't have a moat.
rhubarbquid 10y ago
> None of the data in chat is really a "system of record" and the switching costs are minimal. That's not true where I work. Slack's history is full of valuable information that we use all the time.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  Honest question, is it possible to export all of the chat history from slack? One of the (only) things I like about Skype is that message history is held in an sqlite database on the local machine. So I have a record of every single message for the last 5 years.
  - ec109685 10y ago
    Yes.
ec109685 10y ago
Microsoft Office doesn't have a moat but they had better product and engineers than the competition and turned that into phenomenally successful business. I think you are overly discounting the advantage for Slack having done this for 4 years already.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Microsoft Office doesn't have a moat You are joking, right? Or do you actually believe that pretty much anyone can trivially develop similar tools that have feature-parity?
  - nxc18 10y ago
    Load up Office '97 on a computer today and compare it to Google docs - even 20 years ago Office was more fully featured than their most viable competitor is today (real time collaboration excluded). Then think about all the good work that was done over the last 20 years, and how that really solid base turned into the best mobile office solution. Office has an extremely deep moat and their continued O365 efforts are deepening it.
    - ec109685 10y ago
      But it isn't based on anything besides creating a very, very featured product. Microsoft created their own moat. Same is possible with Slack. 4 years into its lifetime, one could have made same argument against MS that their word processor had no moat.
partycoder 10y ago
You forget the massive amount of plugins and conversational bots that you can plug into slack that are ready to use right now.
- XorNot 10y ago
  Slackbots are easy to write. I suspect they're not deployed in a business valuable way from off-the-shelf offerings. Microsoft only have to make their own bots easy to write.

by mbesto 10y ago

unethical_ban 10y ago

What do you mean, not defensible? As in, it shouldn't exist, or there's no way it can be profitable long-term? I think it's a great product experience, but as you say, without adding more value, it can be replicated by Zulip/Rocket.Chat/Mattermost/Cisco Spark/Microsoft Team/ you name it.

vehementi 10y ago
They meant not profitable long term implicitly as it is easily replicatable
tedunangst 10y ago
As in it doesn't have a moat.

rhubarbquid 10y ago

> None of the data in chat is really a "system of record" and the switching costs are minimal. That's not true where I work. Slack's history is full of valuable information that we use all the time.

dsp1234 10y ago
Honest question, is it possible to export all of the chat history from slack? One of the (only) things I like about Skype is that message history is held in an sqlite database on the local machine. So I have a record of every single message for the last 5 years.
- ec109685 10y ago
  Yes.

ec109685 10y ago

Microsoft Office doesn't have a moat but they had better product and engineers than the competition and turned that into phenomenally successful business. I think you are overly discounting the advantage for Slack having done this for 4 years already.

enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Microsoft Office doesn't have a moat You are joking, right? Or do you actually believe that pretty much anyone can trivially develop similar tools that have feature-parity?
- nxc18 10y ago
  Load up Office '97 on a computer today and compare it to Google docs - even 20 years ago Office was more fully featured than their most viable competitor is today (real time collaboration excluded). Then think about all the good work that was done over the last 20 years, and how that really solid base turned into the best mobile office solution. Office has an extremely deep moat and their continued O365 efforts are deepening it.
  - ec109685 10y ago
    But it isn't based on anything besides creating a very, very featured product. Microsoft created their own moat. Same is possible with Slack. 4 years into its lifetime, one could have made same argument against MS that their word processor had no moat.

partycoder 10y ago

You forget the massive amount of plugins and conversational bots that you can plug into slack that are ready to use right now.

XorNot 10y ago
Slackbots are easy to write. I suspect they're not deployed in a business valuable way from off-the-shelf offerings. Microsoft only have to make their own bots easy to write.