Would they have gotten there if they started off native? Most definitely it would have taken longer to get to market. If they were to rewrite as a native app, then they would need to at least keep the same features their current user base are used to. Then you're going to start all over with new bugs being found.
It's not that complicated. That's a new-ish capability and was not an option when the apps being discussed chose Electron (for their desktop incarnations). It's also not applicable to all macOS systems (as you already noted) out there given that it requires M1-M3 Apple devices. They'd still need to support the older macOS systems while also working out the issues on newer systems. Or they could maintain one solution that works on both.
when slack started off, were they a $27b valuation company? no, they were smaller and yes, needed something to get to MVP for getting there. you're saying that after reaching the point of receiving a $27b valuation that they can not afford to hire subject matter experts into delivering a much better tool than the bloated PoC released as a product? seriously?
One, a valuation is just that, a value of the company. Not the company holdings. Also, that doesn't address that a rewrite comes with stalled features (often), as well as new bugs introduced. How much of a business value is there in that rewrite? We're talking about a business. These are tools that are usually forced upon people by management, and if it works but is a little slow or taking large amounts of memory, management will either do nothing because they got a discount or upgrade machines. At the end of the day, for most it's "good enough".
To be clear, I'm not saying that a developer culture shouldn't strive for this, but these are large businesses and are out for that dollar, and neither seem to be run by developers that would call for a rewrite.
>and neither seem to be run by developers that would call for a rewrite.
No, but they seem to be run UI people. They can justify doing a rewrite of the UI, but not the core? Not one person that I interact with using Slack appreciated the UI changes
In my experience, which may not be common, UI people tend to be more social than backend developers. In reality, and this is not a judgment as to what is right and wrong, but who is more readily able to push for change? Someone that is deep into the software, or someone who is closer to management and able to communicate more effectively (as far as socializing and building a rapport?). Again, I'm not saying it is right, I'm just going by the reality of how software works. This is a good reason for independent software developers to exist! I agree that there is huge business value in writing correct software that is performant, and gets the job done properly. I agree with you that Slack's UI could be improved drastically. The problem is that it's driven by money rather than productivity. I'm pretty sure you and I both agree on how software SHOULD be, but that is not how software actually is, and I don't think it will be until it gets out of the grips of large software developers, or we start to write for performance in an attempt to make software that is environmentally performant.
I'm not sure if we ever get to the point where developers need to start worrying about performance for environmental purposes, that we'll survive if the performance impacts have been measured properly. I'm not trying to be depressing, but I just don't think that it would ever happen until it was too late. Maybe there would be a minority left of society to do this, but that would be building back society. Doomsday scenario. I don't think "we" are smart enough to deal with any catastrophic situation until it's too late.
