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Some of these seem reasonable but I disagree with this: > A decent engineer will likely be able to write a slack-like application, definitely good enough to ca
by armchairhacker 3y ago
Some of these seem reasonable but I disagree with this:
> A decent engineer will likely be able to write a slack-like application, definitely good enough to cancel the 500k/year contract, in a couple of months.
A decent engineer can already crank out a working Slack prototype within a couple of months, and there are mature Slack alternatives today. There's a reason companies are paying $500k/year, and I doubt it's the code: maybe it's the enterprise support, the external integrations, or even just the name recognition.
Companies getting leaner may be true (it seems like this has already been happening the past couple years regardless of AI, and companies used to be lean in the 2010s).
- kjuulh 3y agoWhile yes, an engineer could build a slack clone. Probably initially quite poor and lacking features. If you're not in the business of building chat applications, having to actually maintain such an application becomes a burden. While you may save 500k for a few years. A few years down the road, when said engineer leaves, you will end up having to pay the cost either to exit said app, or spend a lot more engineering effort on it. There definitely is room for such applications, but a chat application probably won't set the business apart.
- sosodev 3y agoTotally agreed. If companies didn’t want to pay for Slack they would have jumped to the alternatives already.