
How did Slack become so popular? - elkramero
http://fundingspree.com/2016/04/04/how-did-slack-become-so-popular/
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lokedhs
I'd say inertia. It's there, easy to get started with, and 10k messages sounds
like a lot. Until you actually start using it. Once you start hitting their
limits, it's too late to start looking at alternatives.

Building an alternative isn't that hard. There are plenty of them out there
that are completely free and even open source (I speak from direct experience
here, we built one of them).

But, once a product has the inertia, it's very difficult to stop them. We've
seen this many times before. DOS, Windows, Playstation, Git, VHS, Microsoft
Word, Ethernet, QWERTY keyboards, etc.

In some cases, the inertia of one product leads to a forced standardisation
which can be a good thing. In other cases, not so much. I leave it to others
to decide where Slack falls on this line.

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educar
Slack is a) free b) easily accessible

All the slack companies I know use the free tier (even public listed
companies!). If it's free and good, why not use it?

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dibbsonline
100/150 user cap on hangouts and no administrative ability.

