It is #1 in search. How much profit do they make in search?
They are #1 in search volume but only a small cohort pay Elastic. Their search is a huge product success use wise, but not such a success on a commercial basis that involves the self interest of making hordes of cash from it.
No one has identified one COMMERCIAL market where Elastic dominates. Logging perhaps. But no, commercially Elastic search is not a success. You need to get paid for it to be a commercial success. Otherwise what you have are metrics like eyeballs (like in the internet bubble) instead of any material commercial measures.
By all means, prove me wrong. Saul’s numbers were quite convincing. If Elastic charged a commercially reasonable rate for its search, the use of its search would materially decline and Elastic may no longer be #1 in search.
Elastic has a much more holistic strategy of converting eyeballs to cash. To date this strategy is not showing any leverage. If you think it will (and it’s “cheap” just because the market “just does not understand”) then you may be rewarded. There is presently no data, however,that you can point to, that Elastic is a commercial success.
It is a good exercise if you can specifically point to real data evidencing error on commercial success.
Tinker