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The cost of Slack becomes significant only if you see it as "OMG! We're are spending $3000 / month on it". But, if you're already paying hundreds of thousands o

The cost of Slack becomes significant only if you see it as "OMG! We're are spending $3000 / month on it". But, if you're already paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in payroll, why would you mind paying a few dollars/employee on a software that enables better collaboration. I have often seen management balking at spending on software and hardware in favor of a near-free and cheaper alternative. The end-result is 10X productivity loss but good luck convincing them to spend more. On an additional note, how is this company so good at PR? Many companies are working on alternatives to popular applications but I find no reason for them to be covered in Bloomberg with such an exaggerated headline; as if they're revolutionizing the communication industry.

kobeya 9y ago
Does slack really enable good collaboration? It seems to destroy productivity in every environment I've ever been in. It is the workplace equivalent of Facebook shitposting. Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap.
- jomkr 9y ago
  IRC is by far and away my favorite method of communication. I'm only 25 so it's not because of a sense of nostalgia. IRC in general is such an under-used resource. Everyone automatically goes to SO, which is fine for trivial problems. They don't realise they could go on IRC and get an answer from the actual dev team of whatever they are having issues with.
- mseebach 9y ago
  Yes, used right it does. A lot. Sure, you can use it for goofing off, too, so you should have some etiquette in place for which channels are kept serious, which aren't (and can safely have notifications turned off), which announcements warrants @channel or @here or @person and which don't. A company where people who feels that it's OK to put a notification on 2000 devices to say "Good morning" or "Lunch, anyone?" can't be reprimanded is a sick company, with or without Slack. It's important to keep in mind that these etiquettes are the same (or at least very analogues to) the ones that are required for email and especially email lists. A company where everybody puts everybody in the To: line of every email will feel that email is a destructive force, but one that cultivates decent distribution list culture and caution about CC'ing the world or replying to all will feel that it is much more useful.
- ehnto 9y ago
  Small teams benefit the most I feel, and even then I tend to agree it is very distracting. At an agency with many clients I am in the channel for most of them and only ever working on one any given moment. Muting a channel doesn't work as I still get highlights for my very common name. The trouble is I very often do have insight or help to provide in most discussions as I have been here a while, but I still get assigned a full workload plus constantly helping in Slack. I have taken to closing it for the majority of the day. Honestly couldn't imagine Slack in a corporate environment.
- mmahemoff 9y ago
  I keep seeing complaints like this with Slack and I think it's because teams need to focus on setting up the right rooms and the right conventions to go with those rooms. Then relentlessly explaining, encouraging, and enforcing them to keep everyone in flow. As one example, to cut down on DMs, each of our team members has their own room where people can "drop in" messages asynchronously. This means there's no notification and no expectation of immediate response, but that's a good thing because we use an agile process where people should be able to focus on their daily goals without distraction anyway. DMs then become a rare & discouraged channel only for emergencies and sensitive conversations.
- Akujin 9y ago
  I'm using Slack every day in a major corporation of greater than 5000 users. Slack enables communication and discovery within such a large organization. Problem with your mac? Go to #osx-troubleshooting Got an IT problem? Check out #IT Want to discuss an architecture problem with dozens of the smartest people in the entire company? Hop onto #architecture Want to share the 5 extra pies of Pizza you had delivered for an undersized audience? Go to #freefood and watch it disappear. We also use bots to surface data into the chatroom automatically as we're doing something collaborative. It's really quite useful when you setup the correct rules.
- danpalmer 9y ago
  > Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap. This may be the case, but they have a cost to set up and maintain, and for companies that aren't almost all developers there's a significant overhead in terms of teaching people how to use IRC/XMPP. Client software for them is often not written with UX in mind, and with the lack of features like uploads/document embedding, using them can be more difficult.
- briandear 9y ago
  You have to pay someone to setup and run those servers. Is that the best use of their time? Can’t you also “shitpost” IRC?
- IshKebab 9y ago
  Come on... you can't even post pictures in IRC.
simonswords82 9y ago
I used to be of a very similar mindset to you. Then I launched HR software for businesses that charges £3 per employee per month. My logic in setting our pricing was exactly the same as yours, if a business is spending £XXXX per month on an employee, why would they possibly scoff at paying £3 per month to ensure that the HR and associated documents/policies etc are correct and compliant? I even went so far as to say if a customer is prepared to spend £3 per employee per month in getting their HR right, I don't want them as a customer (arrogant much?). To cut a long one short, boy was I wrong. We've had to be steadfast with our pricing model because the comparison people make is not the one you and I want them to make. E.g. I spend X on my staff so this trivial expense by comparison is nothing. Instead people compare the cost of our HR software to £FREE or to that of our competitors - who are in a race to the bottom undercharging one another. Slack is going to have the same problem unfortunately. Their's could be the best collaboration software in the world but businesses can and will find ways to achieve the same benefits for a lesser cost.
- mstade 9y ago
  The problem with spending even $1 in a large organization is that someone's going to have to sign off on it. Its always easier to go for cheaper or free then, since you can argue fiscal due diligence (even if it may not be in the long run) and thus have a stronger case for whoever is making the call. This is why gentlemen's agreements with clients to overbill a day or so instead of charging for travel expenses and the likes can be much better for everyone involved. (N.b. can be, it isn't always better.)
  - IshKebab 9y ago
    I agree. The barrier to spending £3 in a business is rarely the £3. It's the "we'll have to talk to procurement, fill out a PO, get three quotes, etc." admin nonsense.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Slack is going to have the same problem unfortunately. Given the number of places I've worked that have migrated from Yammer / HipChat / etc. to Slack because of the cost, yeah, they might well.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
We recently had a discussion at work about paying more for Github so that we could add another person to the organization, who would be read-only. In the end, it ended up costing more in company time just discussing it for 15 minutes than the actual upgrade would cost.

kobeya 9y ago

Does slack really enable good collaboration? It seems to destroy productivity in every environment I've ever been in. It is the workplace equivalent of Facebook shitposting. Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap.

jomkr 9y ago
IRC is by far and away my favorite method of communication. I'm only 25 so it's not because of a sense of nostalgia. IRC in general is such an under-used resource. Everyone automatically goes to SO, which is fine for trivial problems. They don't realise they could go on IRC and get an answer from the actual dev team of whatever they are having issues with.
mseebach 9y ago
Yes, used right it does. A lot. Sure, you can use it for goofing off, too, so you should have some etiquette in place for which channels are kept serious, which aren't (and can safely have notifications turned off), which announcements warrants @channel or @here or @person and which don't. A company where people who feels that it's OK to put a notification on 2000 devices to say "Good morning" or "Lunch, anyone?" can't be reprimanded is a sick company, with or without Slack. It's important to keep in mind that these etiquettes are the same (or at least very analogues to) the ones that are required for email and especially email lists. A company where everybody puts everybody in the To: line of every email will feel that email is a destructive force, but one that cultivates decent distribution list culture and caution about CC'ing the world or replying to all will feel that it is much more useful.
ehnto 9y ago
Small teams benefit the most I feel, and even then I tend to agree it is very distracting. At an agency with many clients I am in the channel for most of them and only ever working on one any given moment. Muting a channel doesn't work as I still get highlights for my very common name. The trouble is I very often do have insight or help to provide in most discussions as I have been here a while, but I still get assigned a full workload plus constantly helping in Slack. I have taken to closing it for the majority of the day. Honestly couldn't imagine Slack in a corporate environment.
mmahemoff 9y ago
I keep seeing complaints like this with Slack and I think it's because teams need to focus on setting up the right rooms and the right conventions to go with those rooms. Then relentlessly explaining, encouraging, and enforcing them to keep everyone in flow. As one example, to cut down on DMs, each of our team members has their own room where people can "drop in" messages asynchronously. This means there's no notification and no expectation of immediate response, but that's a good thing because we use an agile process where people should be able to focus on their daily goals without distraction anyway. DMs then become a rare & discouraged channel only for emergencies and sensitive conversations.
Akujin 9y ago
I'm using Slack every day in a major corporation of greater than 5000 users. Slack enables communication and discovery within such a large organization. Problem with your mac? Go to #osx-troubleshooting Got an IT problem? Check out #IT Want to discuss an architecture problem with dozens of the smartest people in the entire company? Hop onto #architecture Want to share the 5 extra pies of Pizza you had delivered for an undersized audience? Go to #freefood and watch it disappear. We also use bots to surface data into the chatroom automatically as we're doing something collaborative. It's really quite useful when you setup the correct rules.
danpalmer 9y ago
> Also, IRC and XMPP servers are cheap. This may be the case, but they have a cost to set up and maintain, and for companies that aren't almost all developers there's a significant overhead in terms of teaching people how to use IRC/XMPP. Client software for them is often not written with UX in mind, and with the lack of features like uploads/document embedding, using them can be more difficult.
briandear 9y ago
You have to pay someone to setup and run those servers. Is that the best use of their time? Can’t you also “shitpost” IRC?
IshKebab 9y ago
Come on... you can't even post pictures in IRC.

simonswords82 9y ago

I used to be of a very similar mindset to you. Then I launched HR software for businesses that charges £3 per employee per month. My logic in setting our pricing was exactly the same as yours, if a business is spending £XXXX per month on an employee, why would they possibly scoff at paying £3 per month to ensure that the HR and associated documents/policies etc are correct and compliant? I even went so far as to say if a customer is prepared to spend £3 per employee per month in getting their HR right, I don't want them as a customer (arrogant much?). To cut a long one short, boy was I wrong. We've had to be steadfast with our pricing model because the comparison people make is not the one you and I want them to make. E.g. I spend X on my staff so this trivial expense by comparison is nothing. Instead people compare the cost of our HR software to £FREE or to that of our competitors - who are in a race to the bottom undercharging one another. Slack is going to have the same problem unfortunately. Their's could be the best collaboration software in the world but businesses can and will find ways to achieve the same benefits for a lesser cost.

mstade 9y ago
The problem with spending even $1 in a large organization is that someone's going to have to sign off on it. Its always easier to go for cheaper or free then, since you can argue fiscal due diligence (even if it may not be in the long run) and thus have a stronger case for whoever is making the call. This is why gentlemen's agreements with clients to overbill a day or so instead of charging for travel expenses and the likes can be much better for everyone involved. (N.b. can be, it isn't always better.)
- IshKebab 9y ago
  I agree. The barrier to spending £3 in a business is rarely the £3. It's the "we'll have to talk to procurement, fill out a PO, get three quotes, etc." admin nonsense.
zimpenfish 9y ago
> Slack is going to have the same problem unfortunately. Given the number of places I've worked that have migrated from Yammer / HipChat / etc. to Slack because of the cost, yeah, they might well.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

We recently had a discussion at work about paying more for Github so that we could add another person to the organization, who would be read-only. In the end, it ended up costing more in company time just discussing it for 15 minutes than the actual upgrade would cost.