[kwanbix]

As a product manager myself, it means that the value that people got from your app, was not enough to fight a free product. And I mean free as in if you are already paying for a subscription, and it gets added without aditional cost. I have worked at companies that payed for either Google Workspace or Office 365, and they also payed for Slack.

[ItsBob]

> it means that the value that people got from your app, was not enough to fight a free product

The problem you have is that the people making the finance decisions are often far-removed from the ones making value-based decisions.

The ones making the decision from a finance-perspective look at the offering from Microsoft, realise that it does video and chat for free (well, they're paying for O365 anyway) and that's it.

They don't care (or know!) that it's a resource hog, buggy etc. The value from the OP's product would not even be a consideration even if it was 100x "better" (use your own definition of "better" here!)

So I think it's unfair to use that comparison in this case

[teitoklien]

That’s how monopolies get formed, make it unsustainable for competition to exist, and then jack up prices when they all die.

That lower cost people pay upfront thanks to monopolies, is then drained back with interest, using higher prices, reduction in social mobility (of new founders/startups), reduction in innovation & increase in rent-seeking behaviour.

Breaking up monopolies has been long overdue, it’s a good thing its starting now.

[kwanbix]

You can choose to also use slack, or the OP app, if you think the beneffit you get by using the app is greater than the value of paying for it. Nobody is preventing you. Since MS included it for free, is not like you can not pay for the other app because you used the money to pay for teams. I personally don't see the value on slack, but like I said before, I have worked at companies where we had both, office/slack or gw/slack.

[jadengeller]

it's not a great market for consumers if we allow big business to undercut pricing and kill competition

government should help us coordinate to prevent this Nash equilibria

[Wytwwww]

> undercut pricing and kill competition

Yeah but nobody minded not having to pay for web browsers, file manager, antivirus software and bunch of other stuff.

Companies have been bundling their different software products together since almost forever and while there are some disadvantages arguable this has benefited consumers overall. At least I wouldn't be too glad about having to buy separate licenses (or pay separate subscriptions) for Excel, Word and PowerPoint (or any other product bundle like Jetbrains IDEs for every language etc. etc.).

Most people would also not rather get a non-functional barebones OS whenever they get a new PC and have to chose and install all the basic apps themselves.

[HendrikAmbacht]

This is a really naive view on monopolies.

I worked in a company that also sold a collab solution and we had technical champions all over the place that 1000% agreed that our product was better than Teams in every single metric, including performance, UX and productivity. Yet they couldn't secure a budget since the higher-ups knew they got Teams for free in their E5 license.

[kwanbix]

So they couldn't make a good case for the value of paying for that product vs using the free one. You know how many products die because people don't see the value?

[ItsBob]

I don't want it to look like I'm picking on you here (see my other comment above) but that's a naieve take on things.

Not sure you realise but in the corporate world it's about politics and money. People (above entry-level staff) do things to look good to their boss. That's it! And saving money is a great way of getting promoted: "Look boss, I just saved us $500k a year in license fees!".

Saving $X per year using a "free" tool from Microsoft will always trump anything you pay for especially if you are all in on Azure, O365 already. It's a no-brainer.

Not only that, once the decision is made, it will likely never be changed until the higher-up that made the decision moves on, quits, or is fired, no matter how wrong or bad the decision was (well, within reason, of course!)

I'd love it to be as simple as making a good case for the competition, and I've had to make that case many times over the years, but the reality is that a bundled product from Microsoft will win in a place that uses other Microsoft stuff, vs a paid product thats 100x better, faster, stronger, whatever.

[daemin]

It's like the old adage of why Enterprise software sucks so badly to use.

It's because it's being sold to managers and executives who don't actually end up using it, and never have to deal with the consequences of buying it.

[ItsBob]

Exactly. If you want a great example of this, look no further than Jira!

[daemin]

Maybe an unpopular statement but I don't think Jira is that bad by itself. It's just a very flexible and configurable system which ultimately ends up reflecting structure and complexity of the host organisation.

[jadengeller]

is it actually free? or are we collectively paying for it by allowing the big business to gain control of an otherwise competitive market and jack up prices

individuals are not pricing that in. coordination is needed. that's why we regulate the market

[viridian]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but this seems to more-or-less read as,

"As a product manager myself, I believe that the use of an advantageous market position to strengthen vertical integration is a reasonable practice, so long as the bundle cost of the final product to the consumer remains the same."

The problem with this, and the reason we we anti monopoly laws in general, is that this practice can be self-reinforcing, and allows for the capture of an entire market, extinguishing all competition. This then allows pricing for the good on offer to be set at whatever arbitrary price the monopoly deems reasonable.