---
title: "Distribution and defaults"
description: "Owning the channel through which the product reaches the user: default slots, bundles, pre-installs, app-store shelves, armies of salespeople. The product can be worse and still win, because it is already where the user is. The biggest genuine gap in the thirteen sampled tags — a sizeable share of SaaS lives on distribution alone."
canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/16/
locale: en
---

# Distribution and defaults

> Markdown twin of https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/16/ — the same content as the HTML page, a fraction of the bytes.
> Every page of this site has one: append `.md` to any URL, or `index.md` to a directory URL.
> Site structure and the full page list for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt

- Sheet 16 / 35

## Passport

- **Rock**: Position
- **Depth**: 3 · Drill rig
- **Time to dig**: 3–10 years
- **Capital**: ● · high
- **Solo**: ~ partly
- **AI**: → eroding
- **Rent**: ~ partly

## Essence

Owning the channel through which the product reaches the user: default slots, bundles, pre-installs, app-store shelves, armies of salespeople. The product can be worse and still win, because it is already where the user is. The biggest genuine gap in the thirteen sampled tags — a sizeable share of SaaS lives on distribution alone.

## How it is built

### Google and Apple — the default, bought

Google pays Apple something like $20 billion a year for the default search position in Safari. Defaults capture the indifferent majority: almost nobody changes a preset choice, and that inertia is enough to control a market. The United States antitrust case against Google, decided in 2024, showed how central this mechanism was — the court found monopoly, even if the remedies ended up mild.

### Microsoft Teams — the bundle against the better product

Slack was loved and growing; Teams was the app thrown in with Office 365, free across tens of millions of seats that were already paid for. Teams passed Slack on users within a couple of years: when the distribution channel is an existing corporate contract, a competitor's product superiority never gets the chance to work. Slack complained in Brussels and eventually sold to Salesforce — that is, it bought somebody else's distribution.

### Salesforce and Oracle — the sales machine as the channel

Thousands of salespeople, relationships with CIOs, integrator partners, decades of account management: enterprise deals are closed in those relationships, not in the product. Such a channel is built with years and money, and whole market segments are simply shut to a competitor without one — not a single demo reaches them.

## How it is bypassed

### From below, around the channel: product-led growth

Slack, Dropbox, Figma and Notion came in through end users — free, viral, no purchasing committee — and appeared inside the company before the incumbent's salesperson could call. PLG is the creation of your own channel where the incumbent has none: inside people's daily work. The limit is known: against a contract-level bundle like Teams, PLG alone may not be enough.

### A new channel while the old one gets expensive

HubSpot built distribution on inbound content and SEO when cold calling was the norm; the DTC wave grew on cheap social advertising; today's equivalent is creators, communities and AI assistants as the new shelf — being what the model recommends is the new default. Channels get expensive cyclically as they saturate, and the attacker wins by finding the next one while it is still cheap.

### Regulatory and platform resets

Europe's DMA forced browser and search choice screens; Microsoft, under the pressure of Slack's complaint, unbundled Teams from Office. Every platform shift — desktop to web to mobile to voice and agents — deals the default slots again. Distribution moats belong to the era of their platform, and a change of platform redistributes them; that is the newcomer's main chance.

## Verdict

Distribution decides outcomes more often than brands or features. It is built with defaults, bundles and sales machines; it is bypassed by entering from below, by taking the next cheap channel, and by platform resets.

## Related

- HTML version of this page: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/16/
- Русский: https://moa.giglabo.com/ru/moats/16/
- Previous: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/15/
- Next: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/17/
- Atlas: https://moa.giglabo.com/
- Catalogue: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/
- Calculator: https://moa.giglabo.com/calculator/
- Site map for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt