I'm thinking of the handful of formatting that Slack already supports, but only via weird markup. Text entry apps have been using Ctrl-I for italics for at leas

I'm thinking of the handful of formatting that Slack already supports, but only via weird markup. Text entry apps have been using Ctrl-I for italics for at least 25 years. I shouldn't have to remember whether this retrograde webapp expects me to wrap italicized text in underscores, asterisks, or slashes. This kind of thing can also be annoying in sites like Hacker News--e.g. when I try to use an actual asterisk a couple of times and the damn thing italicizes a big random chunk of my post instead--but HN at least has the excuse of a consciously minimal interface. Slack coats itself in slick, modern UI but makes you type emphasis like it was Usenet. It shoves giant obtrusive thumbnails into the chat every time someone posts a URL, but doesn't let you make an actual hyperlink. It's minimal where it should be complex, and complex where it should be minimal.