Slack is Screwed

> (Google and Microsoft are entering the group chat space..) In other words, Slack doesn’t offer anything that Google and Microsoft can’t replicate.

Of course Google and Microsoft can replicate the functionality of Slack -- they have smart, talented staff and chatrooms are a solved problem. However, where Slack excels is in cutting across organizational units, skill-sets, and getting people to use it. It's persistent-history IRC without a technical barrier and great marketing/user acquisition/word-of-mouth.

Unless you're a Microsoft tech-org (meaning C#/.net is the norm, not exception), there's a high likelihood that the only Microsoft software that engineering and design departments have installed is Skype; if I was at Slack, wouldn't sweat the scenario of sales, marketing, and engineering suddenly adopting Microsoft (in fact, "Microsoft Teams" was ostensibly announced in November and no one in my circles has mentioned it).

Google is a trickier problem for Slack. Everyone uses Gmail and Google is the landing page of the HTTP-internet. However, and maybe this is contentious, Google's need to integrate their myriad services turns users away. Not to beat a dead horse, but Google Plus could not have asked for better conditions for organic growth and it still somehow turned into a ghost town.

> Almost every business either has G Suite or Office 365... As a company, why the hell would you shell out for one of them and Slack?

But, to my experience and opinion, "already paid for" and "close enough" may peel away some users from Slack and towards Google -- this is why orgs end up using HipChat.