> In other words, so long as consumers prioritise functionality over the efficiency of the program, it makes good business sense for you to prioritise that too.

And the kicker is, consumers don't have a say in this process anyway. I don't know of anyone who chose Slack. It's universally handed down onto you from somewhere above you in the corporate, and you're forced to use it. Sure, a factor in this is that it works on multiple platforms (including mobile) and you don't have to worry about setting it up for yourself, but that has nothing to do with the in-app features and overall UX. Or Spotify, whose biggest value is that it's a cheap and legal alternative to pirating music. And that value has, again, nothing to do with softare, and everything to do with the deals they've managed to secure with artists and labels.

I exercise my preferences wrt. Slack by using Ripcord instead of the official client. Most people I know exercise their preferences wrt. Spotify by using YouTube instead (which is arguably lighter resource-wise). And speaking of alternative clients, maybe that could be the way to go - focus on monetizing the service, but embrace different ways of accessing it. Alas, time and again, companies show they prefer total control over the ecosystem surrounding their service.

> And the kicker is, consumers don't have a say in this process anyway. I don't know of anyone who chose Slack. It's universally handed down onto you from somewhere above you in the corporate, and you're forced to use it.

The consumer here is the business itself, not their employees.

Technically yes (well, the customers, not consumers), but that's the problem itself: the feedback pipeline between end-users and producers is broken because the end-users aren't the customers.

Maybe we need a power declaration of software as with dish washers. (No joke)