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> If there has been no real gain in functionality, then why is Slack hugely popular while IRC is used by almost no one? The main, really only, features that Sl

> If there has been no real gain in functionality, then why is Slack hugely popular while IRC is used by almost no one? The main, really only, features that Slack has that IRC doesn’t is easy account onboarding and (crucially, for business) offboarding, and persistent messaging. This has been discussed to death, publicly, by organizations like Mozilla. They were also smart enough to offer themselves for free to startups, which largely undermined hipchat, which had the same basic value proposition over IRC, and allowed them to build a hip reputation and network effects in the startup crowd. Are we really going to pretend that those features are why the Slack client consumes tons of RAM and a fuckload of CPU cycles? They’re entirely server side, for christ’s sake. ICQ could do all of the above on a 32 Meg Mac 20 years ago. The bloat isn’t related to the reasons it “won”, or why it continues to be popular. Network effects, the fact that if your company mandates it you have no alternative, simply insulates them from suffering many ill-effects of their bloated, laggy client software.

harryh 7y ago
Lots of different chat software had easy onboarding & offboarding as well as persistent messaging before Slack and none of it was successful in the same way.
- msbarnett 7y ago
  Like I said, networking effects and currying a hip reputation are a huge part of why I think they got big. In large part nothing about what makes them big strikes me as technical in nature. But sure, ok, so let’s hear your theory on why they got big and how it requires all of this client side RAM usage. So what is it?
  - skolsuper 7y ago
    IME Slack at big companies has mostly been a ground-up initiative by engineers that were sick of important discussions happening in long email chains. It's strange to read that network effects or entrenchment made Slack so huge when 5 or 6 years ago they didn't exist :/
    - msbarnett 7y ago
      IME as an engineer who’s been around the block, before Slack we were using Hipchat, and before that Jabber or IRC. I have not noticed a significant change in features (gifs, bots, integrations were all there through all of those), just changing fads, but by god if the performance and responsiveness of the chat client de jour hasn’t been steadily declining over time. Mostly what drove orgs I’ve been with from one to another has been pricing (Slack having a free tier ate Hipchat’s lunch, like I said), and “buzz”. Slack was the hip thing to get on in 2013.

harryh 7y ago

Lots of different chat software had easy onboarding & offboarding as well as persistent messaging before Slack and none of it was successful in the same way.

msbarnett 7y ago
Like I said, networking effects and currying a hip reputation are a huge part of why I think they got big. In large part nothing about what makes them big strikes me as technical in nature. But sure, ok, so let’s hear your theory on why they got big and how it requires all of this client side RAM usage. So what is it?
- skolsuper 7y ago
  IME Slack at big companies has mostly been a ground-up initiative by engineers that were sick of important discussions happening in long email chains. It's strange to read that network effects or entrenchment made Slack so huge when 5 or 6 years ago they didn't exist :/
  - msbarnett 7y ago
    IME as an engineer who’s been around the block, before Slack we were using Hipchat, and before that Jabber or IRC. I have not noticed a significant change in features (gifs, bots, integrations were all there through all of those), just changing fads, but by god if the performance and responsiveness of the chat client de jour hasn’t been steadily declining over time. Mostly what drove orgs I’ve been with from one to another has been pricing (Slack having a free tier ate Hipchat’s lunch, like I said), and “buzz”. Slack was the hip thing to get on in 2013.