Just curious, don't you think it'd be much harder to justify their valuation if it's just an open protocol?
Yes, I do think so. But I also think fundamental functionality like team chat should be a solved problem by now, and shouldn't be so concentrated to a single company.
Obviously, having a captive userbase to extract revenue from is good for their valuation. It probably isn't so great for the users though.
Also allows them to invest more in the product, which is great for the users
Re:Slack's bait and switch
by FridgeSeal on Monday March 12, 2018 @06:34PM
(#16572319)
Which is why they fixed their resource hog of a client right?
By no means am I calling the product perfect. Resource hogging is an issue that is particularly important to most HN users.
But would you say that they're _not_ investing in the product? They're improving on search, their API, adding new integrations with Github, etc. Those might not be the things that matter the most to you or other HN users, but they are investments in the product.
In theory.
Have you used their client?
Yep, use it every day. Agree that it takes a lot of resources. But lack of investments in one aspect of the product doesn't mean that they haven't / aren't investing in other aspects.
> the reason some people prefer cathedrals vs bazaars is that they often have much lower barriers to entry
There's nothing inherit about these "cathedrals" that require them to be walled gardens. Slack could have been an open protocol, but they decided not to be.