The timing thing is always at play, I agree but I’m not buying the narrative that Slack had less work to do because of work done by Socialtext, Jive, Atlassian

The timing thing is always at play, I agree but I’m not buying the narrative that Slack had less work to do because of work done by Socialtext, Jive, Atlassian and others. Whatever desktop technology they use to bundle chrome (eg Electron), yes, they are benefiting from that work a bit and modern browsers in general. But overall I think Slack could have existed in a similar form as a desktop work/chat application in the late 90s or early 2000s using Winforms and Carbon or whatever native desktop kits. It could have been a user friendly irc client with file sharing tailored to teams and workplaces, and it would have done wonderfully, no “standing on shoulders” of Web 2.0 stuff required. In fact I think it would have been an easier path to success if they started in 1999.