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Comment by mping | Hacker News Reader

People always forget about UI/UX and ecosystem.

You could argue that we had cellphones for ages, why would someone need an iPhone? You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone?

The new "category" of software is about how people relate to software, not the software itself. IKEA created a new category of furniture, or it did not?

I think Uber created a new category of service, but we always had taxis and gps; Slack didn't necessarily create new software, but in my opinion it put chat apps on the general public's mind and it kinda became the go-to name, same as AWS or IBM. That's worth something.

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> You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone

Having used both I think it is a legitimate question. iPhone vs android is just arbitrary preference at this point.

I think the same thing with Slack. Whether you use Slack, Teams, Hangouts Meet, or something else is becoming entirely a preference. For a company that is losing money this is not a good thing.

On an individual basis, it's a legitimate question. On a bigger scale, the iPhone was/is a game changer.

Not "was/is", just "was". A customer that decides today doesn't care much about the iPhone legacy, but only if he/she can satisfy all their personal requirements with today's phones and ecosystems. And on that metric there's just as many people preferring iPhones as there are preferring Android devices, because none is clearly superior across the board, but each of them has different strengths and it is a question of personal preference which strengths someone values more.

Well, not exactly. Android has mich higher market share than iOS. There's not just as many preferring iPhones, not even close, though it may feel that way in certain geographies.

Not that many preferring iPhones? People not having iPhones has mostly to do with the 'luxury' aspect of them. Many want an one, but can't/don't want to spend the money on it. The absolute majority of Android devices sold is the sub-€300 market, many subsidised. It's mostly the tech-savvy crowd that on purpose buys an Android from what I see.

Just look at the insane secondhand value of any iPhone. Even my perfectly working old iPhone 6S I use as a backup would still sell for €240 today - which is absolutely nuts...

That's not what prefer means. By your logic just as many people prefer to fly in private jets as fly economy, but that's a meaningless statement - they don't prefer it, they prefer cheaper options and to spend the money on other things. Clearly by any definition the vast majority prefer to buy phones cheaper than Apple sell them, but the high end Android market does great too. Really Android just dominates completely in every market and has done for a very long time, which is why Apple fans like to talk about Apple taking most of the profit (as if this is a good thing!).

maybe so, but that’s not his argument.

his argument is that it’s so new that people don’t grok it yet. (which of course is wrong)

This exactly. You can tell a lot of the above commenters likely havent spent more than a few hours using Slack. Slack has completely changed the way I, and many of my colleagues, communicate with one another at work. (not saying its better or worse, just absolutely different).

Or perhaps they actually haven’t spent enough time not using Slack. I know as someone new to the industry, in all my 4 years I haven’t known a time when I wasn’t able to just ping someone on Slack. It’s natural and obvious to me.

How has Slack completely changed the way you communicate? You can chat, share files and do a lite screen share in a single app? Integrations? I guess, I don't see it and I've used Slack for years, before that HipChat, and I used IRC for a very long time too.

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