[wongarsu]

Dropbox is a glorified FTP client, Slack is IRC with a nice skin and inline pictures, Spotify is bittorrent without the hassle of downloads (and more legal, but that hasn't stopped people). Convinience matters, and convinience sells. But it is only one of many factors that play into the decision to purchase. Dropbox for example wouldn't sell all that great without the free tier.

[dymk]

If you honestly think that Dropbox is just glorified FTP, or Slack is just IRC with pictures, or Spotify is JUST bittorrent (or Napster even), I question if you've ever actually used any of those services. They provide so much more than the alternatives you listed.

[vincentkriek]

The Dropbox and Spotify examples are ridiculous. They offer a lot more and a lot more usability than the comparison.

But Slack basically is just IRC with pictures right? What extra value does slack give me other than a decent web client?