That sounds reasonable, and I'll gladly admit that ICQ made things easier for the competition, but I remain sceptical. ICQ had the network effect on their side, yet people still switched to MSN (back then still Windows Messenger IIRC).
Exactly. Within the group of people that I have as contacts, I believe that MSN got its critical mass very quickly amongst "ordinary" Windows users who began using the product that was shipped with Windows.
There were simply too many non ICQ:ers (dare I say "not very tech-savvy people"?) on the MSN network very early, forcing the nerds to switch if they wanted to keep contact with their other friends. [Insert nerd joke here.]
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That sounds reasonable, and I'll gladly admit that ICQ made things easier for the competition, but I remain sceptical. ICQ had the network effect on their side, yet people still switched to MSN (back then still Windows Messenger IIRC).
Exactly. Within the group of people that I have as contacts, I believe that MSN got its critical mass very quickly amongst "ordinary" Windows users who began using the product that was shipped with Windows.
There were simply too many non ICQ:ers (dare I say "not very tech-savvy people"?) on the MSN network very early, forcing the nerds to switch if they wanted to keep contact with their other friends. [Insert nerd joke here.]