Salesforce drops UI as a moat

Stratechery frames Salesforce's decision as a deliberate retreat from a position it can no longer hold. The company had treated its user interface as a protective moat, but according to the article that moat is disappearing for everyone, not just for Salesforce.

That is what makes the move smart rather than defensive. Rather than pouring resources into defending an advantage the whole market is losing, Salesforce is stepping away from it — and Stratechery's read is that this is a very smart move precisely because the moat is vanishing industry-wide.

The stakes hinge on what Salesforce substitutes for the interface it is no longer leaning on. The article does not say what that replacement is, so whether the strategy pays off remains an open question.