> Then one of the big players comes in and adds the feature to their main product. Poof, everything somebody worked long and hard for disappears.
There's a lot of wisdom in the statement above, but you also have a point... which I think you went much too far with.
Basecamp is not a relationship; it's a brand, but it's much weaker than, say, Apple, Ferrari, Nike, etc.
See, Basecamp was what all the kool kidz were using. And the Basecamp founders were soooo koooool! They even wrote a book! Oh yeah, and they used "the hot new technology" red choo-choo trains, er, uh, I mean Ruby on Rails.
Hey, if people can feel passionately about sugar-flavored water with bubbles in it, they can feel passionately about software... I guess.
Buuuuut the inherent problem is this: you can show off your Apple, Ferrari, Nike, etc. to your friends and to the girls/women you want to impress.
Basecamp, not so much. Basecamp seems like a dying brand to me. I don't see why anyone would begin using Basecamp these days because it's waaaaay overpriced.
But for a 40 year old who started using it 18 years ago, sure, he might have enough money, nostalgia, and, well, laziness, to keep using it.
I doubt Basecamp has many users under the age of 30, and probably never will. And I doubt it has many new users. At the end of the day most software doesn't have a social aspect to it; these days I assume Basecamp essentially is seen as a commodity (like a pillow case) by most people, even those who use it. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are outliers which are extremely popular and have network effects.
There's a lot of wisdom in the statement above, but you also have a point... which I think you went much too far with.
Basecamp is not a relationship; it's a brand, but it's much weaker than, say, Apple, Ferrari, Nike, etc.
See, Basecamp was what all the kool kidz were using. And the Basecamp founders were soooo koooool! They even wrote a book! Oh yeah, and they used "the hot new technology" red choo-choo trains, er, uh, I mean Ruby on Rails.
Hey, if people can feel passionately about sugar-flavored water with bubbles in it, they can feel passionately about software... I guess.
Buuuuut the inherent problem is this: you can show off your Apple, Ferrari, Nike, etc. to your friends and to the girls/women you want to impress.
Basecamp, not so much. Basecamp seems like a dying brand to me. I don't see why anyone would begin using Basecamp these days because it's waaaaay overpriced.
But for a 40 year old who started using it 18 years ago, sure, he might have enough money, nostalgia, and, well, laziness, to keep using it.
I doubt Basecamp has many users under the age of 30, and probably never will. And I doubt it has many new users. At the end of the day most software doesn't have a social aspect to it; these days I assume Basecamp essentially is seen as a commodity (like a pillow case) by most people, even those who use it. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are outliers which are extremely popular and have network effects.