3 ms·

If you think there's no lock-in I don't know if you understand what's going on here fully. Slack has lock-in from day one: as soon as people use it, it's hard t

If you think there's no lock-in I don't know if you understand what's going on here fully. Slack has lock-in from day one: as soon as people use it, it's hard to move away. We're an organization of 50 people and ripping out Slack, changing user habits and even getting all of our data out of there would be a _massive_ pain – so we'll never do it. This absolutely discounts how high the cost to your employees of continually switching tools is.

alexasmyths 9y ago
That people use it and may like it, is not really 'lock in'. Ultimately, it's an easy-to-reproduce experience, and there will be/are competitors offering 'the same thing' - and so there will be price competition. If you want to 'switch to an alternative' it would be a disruption, not a 'massive pain'. Your 'old chats' are not that valuable. If Slack was integrated into other systems - or integrated with partners, customers etc. - that is 'lock in'. FYI - It may very well be the 'next cool things' comes along, and you find small teams 'just using that cool thing' already. Finally I would say that Slack is not even that optimal - there is a lot of 'noise' in those channels, and the value add I believe is not that high. I consult for startups sometimes, they put me on Slack and it's total noise. I ask to just use email, and it works. I think 'best practice' is not in a tool, it's in behaviour. Email, used properly, with the help of a simple chat app for teams, can work just fine.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > If you want to 'switch to an alternative' it would be a disruption, not a 'massive pain'. Your 'old chats' are not that valuable This is the definition of lock-in. Switching would be a disruption so you don't do it. I'm locked into Gmail. There are lots of competing products, but everyone knows my Gmail address and all my old emails are on it. I don't bother exploring switching because I know it will be a disruption.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    I disagree your definition of what 'lock in' is. All new technologies and process imply some degree of disruption. 'Lock in' is existential disruption. + You wrote your entire app in .NET - that's lock in. Changing it means gambling the whole company. + You went Oracle/SQL because of regulatory requirements - your app is wrapped around SQL, you have SQL/Oracle exports on board, you're not going to change that. + SAP - your whole company is wrapped around it, it's integrated with a dozen other systems. + You went Cisco - it really only interfaces with other Cisco gear. Lock in. Slack is a 'chat app'. It's not that big a deal to switch. If Slack evaporated tomorrow - one could switch to an alternative instantly. Teams would figure out a new protocol for communicating instantly. It's just chat.
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      There's a massive amount of potential lock in on the integrations side. How your pagers fire, how code deploys rollout, etc
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > Slack is a 'chat app'. It's not that big a deal to switch. You're over-constraining lock-in to its technical factors. Facebook has lock-in for totally non-technical reasons. These are equally, if not sometimes more, powerful than technical lock-in. Lock-in means high switching costs. If it's more disruptive to switch than you could hope to gain from switching, you won't bother even contemplating switching and are, again by definition, locked in.
- ebiester 9y ago
  Your old chats might not be valuable for you, but in many companies, it has become de-facto documentation. People get questions answered, and it never makes it to the wiki.
darksim905 9y ago
As far as I know you can exgest your data & close the team -- what's the issue with ripping it out again? :)

alexasmyths 9y ago

That people use it and may like it, is not really 'lock in'. Ultimately, it's an easy-to-reproduce experience, and there will be/are competitors offering 'the same thing' - and so there will be price competition. If you want to 'switch to an alternative' it would be a disruption, not a 'massive pain'. Your 'old chats' are not that valuable. If Slack was integrated into other systems - or integrated with partners, customers etc. - that is 'lock in'. FYI - It may very well be the 'next cool things' comes along, and you find small teams 'just using that cool thing' already. Finally I would say that Slack is not even that optimal - there is a lot of 'noise' in those channels, and the value add I believe is not that high. I consult for startups sometimes, they put me on Slack and it's total noise. I ask to just use email, and it works. I think 'best practice' is not in a tool, it's in behaviour. Email, used properly, with the help of a simple chat app for teams, can work just fine.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> If you want to 'switch to an alternative' it would be a disruption, not a 'massive pain'. Your 'old chats' are not that valuable This is the definition of lock-in. Switching would be a disruption so you don't do it. I'm locked into Gmail. There are lots of competing products, but everyone knows my Gmail address and all my old emails are on it. I don't bother exploring switching because I know it will be a disruption.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  I disagree your definition of what 'lock in' is. All new technologies and process imply some degree of disruption. 'Lock in' is existential disruption. + You wrote your entire app in .NET - that's lock in. Changing it means gambling the whole company. + You went Oracle/SQL because of regulatory requirements - your app is wrapped around SQL, you have SQL/Oracle exports on board, you're not going to change that. + SAP - your whole company is wrapped around it, it's integrated with a dozen other systems. + You went Cisco - it really only interfaces with other Cisco gear. Lock in. Slack is a 'chat app'. It's not that big a deal to switch. If Slack evaporated tomorrow - one could switch to an alternative instantly. Teams would figure out a new protocol for communicating instantly. It's just chat.
  - bpicolo 9y ago
    There's a massive amount of potential lock in on the integrations side. How your pagers fire, how code deploys rollout, etc
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Slack is a 'chat app'. It's not that big a deal to switch. You're over-constraining lock-in to its technical factors. Facebook has lock-in for totally non-technical reasons. These are equally, if not sometimes more, powerful than technical lock-in. Lock-in means high switching costs. If it's more disruptive to switch than you could hope to gain from switching, you won't bother even contemplating switching and are, again by definition, locked in.
ebiester 9y ago
Your old chats might not be valuable for you, but in many companies, it has become de-facto documentation. People get questions answered, and it never makes it to the wiki.

darksim905 9y ago

As far as I know you can exgest your data & close the team -- what's the issue with ripping it out again? :)