VScode has a bit of a history now of quickly deprecating competitors who innovate in this space. It already has good options for code completion, AI chat bots, and more features on the horizon. I'm not sure what cursors moat is. Seems to me like Microsoft could easily implement any new feature cursor comes up with.
That is why most forks lose in the end, be it egcs, deno, NoSQL or cursor, the leaders eventually integrate the key features that have made them a differentiatior, thus people don't have to change, lose the investement they already had on the existing tool, and get those features as well.
For me, the best kind of "moat" (tbh I hate that word, since it specifically implies needing to design (...scheme...) and engineer some kind of user lock-in, which is inherently user-hostile) would be staying aggressively on the forefront of DX. More important than feature churn, making it polished and seamless and keeping a smile on my face as I work is the best kind of "moat."
It requires constant attention and vigilance, but that's better for everyone than having some kind of "moat" that lets them start coasting or worse— lets them start diverting focus to features that are relevant for their enterprise sales team but not for developers using the software.
Companies really should have to stay competitive on features and developer happiness. A moat by definition is anti-competitive.
