How to Steal a Customer Base (9 minute read) (opens in new tab)

The fastest way to take a competitor's customers is to leave them nothing to walk away from. Cursor didn't ask developers to switch off VS Code, it forked VS Code, so every extension, shortcut, and bit of muscle memory came along for free, then rebuilt the engine around AI underneath. Microsoft can't simply copy that back, because rebuilding VS Code that deeply would put its whole extension ecosystem at risk, so it won't, and that refusal is the counter-positioning that holds the door open.