Yeah, the ecosystem and integrations is definitely where Slack has the advantage. Still, I'd rather give up the integrations than the much improved communication.
I think the real problem is that people can only really support having one chat application open continuously at a time. Maybe two for some, if you account for the non-chat things like text & email. Notification / source burnout. I have to use slack professionally, I'm not going to add another tool.
That's why someone was suggesting mattermost (iirc on a friday), as something that bridges all the chat platforms and gives you a single tool
Hmm, what do you mean? I'm talking about using Zulip instead of Slack. If I'm going to use another similar service, I might as well use Slack itself. Zulip is miles ahead.
I'm saying my employer, who pays for slack so this whole thing is a no-op, means I have to have slack open. I'm not adding another chat platform to my repertoire, that is the real problem of incumbent
If you read the CUE discussion I linked, you will see several people making this same point
Well yes, how could you? If the rest of the company is on Slack, you using a different service wouldn't work. The question is where does the employer (or, specifically, the CUE team) go if they don't want to pay for Slack any more.
1: I am not employed by CUE. I am their biggest fan and cheerleader
2: CUE has never paid for Slack
The context is that I have slack open, I am in 12+ groups. I've tried adding other platforms like discord and keeping them open.
The point is that, as a human, I only have so much attention, and having more than one chat program open at a time, in addition to the other messaging streams we are subjected to, it's a non-starter.
For my own sanity, only one chat platform can be regularly open. Thus follows the network effect and incumbent arguments
The main problem with alternatives is integrations, bots, and similar. The ecosystems are not as available, at least that is the impression