[cocktailpeanuts]

How does he go from "Zoom is great" to "Business software is so good now, that it's competing with consumer software"?

His only supporting example is Zoom. Then he goes on to generalize the shit out of it which is not really that convincing.

Zoom succeeded in consumer space because of COVID, period. Good for them, but I don't like people who spin stories. Even before covid I've known about Zoom for a while as some nerdy videoconferencing software, but never saw it as a high quality consumer app.

[throwanem]

I know a lot of folks who heavily use Trello to organize their personal lives.

He's wrong about Slack, though. That mindshare among people who don't already use Slack at work, and even among many who do, belongs overwhelmingly to Discord.

[Macha]

But Trello was designed as the opposite of prevailing business tools at that time and part of that was that consumer use cases (e.g. college projects) were mentioned often in earlier examples, so it's hard to claim it as an example of a business tool migrating to consumer use.

Its taken a more business first approach since the atlassian acquisition for sure, but that wasn't always the exclusive focus.

[throwanem]

It wasn't always the exclusive focus, but I think it was always the primary focus. After all, it came out of Fog Creek Software (now Glitch); given their product history, Trello would stand out as the only consumer-focused product they'd ever released, had they actually released it as one.

As I recall the original marketing (imperfectly, I'm sure, as it's been quite a while ago now), the pitch was focused around the concept of a project management tool without the usual overheads and complexities such tools tend to bring along, something you could just jump into and start using. "And you can even use it for stuff outside of work!" might've been there also, I don't doubt it, but I have to think it would've been secondary at best.

[Macha]

I agree, I'm not saying it's a 50/50 split. But I think consumers were at least considered in the design process for Trello, which is the not the case for Zoom.

[bsenftner]

And then there is the massive population of people who burned their productivity with last generation's chat apps and do not dare allow chat productivity destroying software into their workplaces.

[Alex3917]

> His only supporting example is Zoom.

As another well-known example, the hottest new teen sexting app is currently Google Docs.

[cocktailpeanuts]

wow i had no idea, where can i learn more?

[Alex3917]

https://boingboing.net/2019/03/14/youll-never-guess-what-app...

[scarface74]

Microsoft Office use to be $600 and only businesses paid for it. Everyone else either pirated it or use a consumer “Works” product. At $99/year for 6 users, it works across all of your devices and gives each user 1TB of storage. Many consumers use it and pay for it now.

The Adobe Photoshop bundle gained more mainstream buyers when they went subscription.

As far as Zoom, I agree. To a close approximation, every adult has FB in the US so Messenger has been the go to app for friends and family. Besides your contacts are already there.