[ZephyrBlu]

> If it would take them less than 500 years, then, in some sense, Discord isn't 10 billion dollars worth of software

And what about Slack, Zoom or Coinbase?

Are they $27B, $100B and $100B worth of software?

What company is $x billions of dollars worth of software where x is their valuation? Even Google almost certainly isn't $1.3T (!) worth of software.

[ALittleLight]

Yeah, what I'm saying is that companies are valuable or not based on their users (or what they earn) and not their software. Purchasing companies aren't paying X billion dollars for the code and assets. They are paying for the users. (Which, I also think is kind of obvious).

[bluecalm]

As proven by among others Zoom, Whatsapp and now Discord if you build good software people will switch to it. I think you're undervaluing how good the software is. They are 5 years old, started from 0 user base and now they are a huge player and getting bigger by the day. You would have a point if there was something remotely close in quality on the market but not as popular but there just isn't. Discord is the first communication platform which doesn't suck in some obvious way. If Microsoft manage to buy it for 10B and not mess it up it will be one of their best acquisitions.

[meheleventyone]

The users without the software have no value though. If you could theoretically sell just the user base would it be worth as much?

It’s more like the user base and network effects are a multiplier of the software value.

[sjg007]

Well it can be users and/or features. A feature might give you an advantage in your bundle that you can't otherwise build.

[ZephyrBlu]

Right, in that case I completely agree with you.