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Slack is one of those few platforms, where their success makes no sense to me at all. I hate using it, I hated their bloated desktop apps, I hate the separate p
by lbj 7y ago
Slack is one of those few platforms, where their success makes no sense to me at all. I hate using it, I hated their bloated desktop apps, I hate the separate passwords/emails for every location you log into. I hope to one day understand the magic behind Slack, Salesforce, Sitecore and a few other huge tech successes, that have subpar tech.
- rjzzleep 7y agoI do agree with some of your rant, but actually the separate passwords/emails for every location are a very clean implementation of multi tenant client login. I'm not sure how well it is implemented in the backend, but if it is safely separated in the database while having the current UX it's actually really well designed.
- chupa-chups 7y agoThis is the exact opposite of clean multi tenant login. A "clean" multi tenant login separates the user from the account, i.e. the same user has different rights depending on the account he is using.
- paxys 7y agoA "clean" multi tenant login separates the person from the account. There's no reason for a person to have a direct 1:1 mapping with a system user or account.
- dimgl 7y agoA large majority of people who use Slack disagree with you. I've never really had a problem with it and I actually enjoy Slack quite a bit.
- cosmotic 7y agoAny evidence of this large majority?
- lazzlazzlazz 7y agoCounter point: I've used Slack at several jobs and in several other group settings, and never met somebody who loved it. People like that they can message groups, separate threads into channels, but Slack the client feels like very slick enterprise software at best. (Contrast cases in the chat/productivity space: Discord, Telegram, Notion, Airtable, Coda)
- brazzledazzle 7y agoSlack and Discord feel really similar to me.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- goatherders 7y agoUsing something does not mean liking it. I hate Slack with the fire of 1000 suns but still use it
- Someone1234 7y ago"It is popular therefore it cannot have these faults." Isn't a particularly strong argument against the critique.
- capableweb 7y ago> A large majority of people who use Slack disagree with you How do you know? Most people I know, uses Slack because that's the company policy, not because they find Slack the best option. But I don't think that's the majority of people, because is just my biased view, but probably it's the same in your case.
- blackandblue 7y agoslack and confluence :)
- ajkjk 7y agoI have... never met anyone in real life who doesn't like slack. I only hear negative opinions about it here.
- komali2 7y agoCome grab a coffee with me, I'm at 2nd and Howard, about a block away from the Slack office. Or just hang near the sidewalk, our windows are open and at some point my whinging about slack (or gitlab) should float down to the sidewalk.
- marblar 7y agoThis can't be true. I work on that block and haven't heard you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gumby 7y ago> I have... never met anyone in real life who doesn't like slack. I only hear negative opinions about it here. While I have literal never discussed Slack with someone who likes it. Actually not completely true: at my last company one developer thought it was great but after a few months I heard her curse it as a "place information goes to die". In my experience it doesn't scale beyond a very small number of people who know each other well. Sending commands from its command line is not as easy as simply sending them from, you know, the command line (which is scriptable). As a side point it astonishes me that after all the money they raised and people they hired they can't get video working on mobile, just laptop/desktop.
- ProAm 7y agoI use slack because I have to but it's garbage.
- CameronBanga 7y agoAll of the people here disagreeing with you certainly haven’t worked in a large enterprise. Try locked down Teams and then let’s talk about Slack.
- jonas21 7y agoJust anecdotally, I've noticed a high correlation between: a) People who hate Slack b) People who hate open-plan offices c) People who can't imagine why anyone would ever have a different opinion than them on such topics
- BurningFrog 7y ago"Haters gonna hate Slack too"
- mpfundstein 7y agoSorry but how can you not hate open office plans?
- mpfundstein 7y agoSorry but how can you not hate open office plans. Its the most terrible workplace idea ever. In my company, everyone can work from home or gets own office. Period
- joshuahughes 7y agoMay I refer you to item 'c' in jonas21's list? ;-)
- jayd16 7y agoIt has all the features you need on every platform including a web browser. What competes with it besides maybe Discord?
- cosmotic 7y agoLack of competition doesn't mean it's technologically bad. Slack causes me pain every day, largely because of the technical decisions they made.
- speedgoose 7y agoMicrosoft Teams, it's not very good but it's well integrated inside the Microsoft environment.
- brandonscott 7y agonot very good is the understatement of the year.
- bdcravens 7y agoIt isn't terribly popular, but Zoho's Cliq is pretty much a clone. There's a few things it doesn't do as well, and others things that I actually prefer (multiple channels on screen, for example)
- brazzledazzle 7y agoI’d kill for multiple channels on a screen. I abuse threads regularly just to have an approximation.
- ithkuil 7y agoI use the web interface and open multiple tab/windows and organize things with generic tools (tiling window managers etc) according to my necessities.
- runarberg 7y ago
- InterestBazinga 7y agoI was very interested in their growth trajectory, so I wrote some notes a while back. It is a factor of product decisions and attracting clients effectively. Their attempt to provide another solution for emails, while trying to introduce gamification appeared to have become quite popular.
- frandroid 7y agoJust use the same password for all of your slacks? It's not like they're going into a different database... If Slack gets breached, all passwords get leaked.
- mint2 7y agoBecause my company uses Skype to do chatting and it’s worse than slack
- noelsusman 7y agoThis is why I don't personally understand all the Slack hate. It's a godsend compared to every other messaging service I've seen in an enterprise environment. I'm stuck using Webex Teams right now and it's horrifyingly bad.
- igreulich 7y agoBeing better than [x] does not make Slack good, per se. It might make some thankful they aren't using [x], but that's really about as far as that should go. I like Slack more than Skype, but I hate Slack with the passion of 1000 firey suns, especially in regard to many UIUX decisions. (Why does the new message line stay on the view AFTER I HAVE RESPONDED?) Not to mention the un...helpfulness (I guess) of their support. Slack was great when it was new, because it was better in someway than everything else out there. Mind you not the same way for everything, but in some way it was better than most, if not all other options avaliable at the time. That is not the case now. There are other options that are as good, or better. Slack MUST have been aiming for that 'fuck-you' size the entire time, because once they hit critical mass, they seemingly immediately stopped trying to be better, and started trying to be the one you were already paying; a serious downgrade in my opinion.
- hobofan 7y agoYou don't see the magic behind Slack, because it got lost. At one point in the past Slack was new and shiny. It had much less features, but every one of them were crafted with UX in mind. People were raving about it, because for many it was the first time they could use something that had the nice properties of IRC chatrooms, in a nicely polished package, and it was usable in a work setting. It brought some fun back into the workplace where you previously had boring email inboxes. I don't know exactly what changed. Maybe with feature bloat, the same care for UX was lost. Maybe the competition caught up and it doesn't stick out as that special anymore.
- lbj 7y agoThat makes perfect sense. I was just a little late to the party :)
- virtue3 7y agoIt is still significantly easier to use the hipchat, et al. Which was the main driver in the "enterprise" space. Also the free model is _very_ generous.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago> Maybe the competition caught up and it doesn't stick out as that special anymore. Exactly. Slack's biggest benefit was "chat with persistent history, the ability to message offline people, and notifications". That's table stakes now.
- 7y ago
- Japhy_Ryder 7y agoSalesforce is a pile of garbage. I don't understand at all why it's so successful.
- mrdoops 7y agoA few reasons. First is that developer's don't buy it, non-technicals do, and it's got serious vendor lock-in capability. The other reason is that an excel-formula-wizard-type user can basically google his/her way to building a CRUD app for the business - and it works for the most part. Those combined are a billion dollar company. Us developers might not like it, but it has huge business value one way or another.
- pmart123 7y agoI was on the train from Boston to New York one time, and a bunch of Salesforce employees (sales) were also in my car. Let me first say their sales team is relentless and never gives up. However, at one point they were speaking with a prospect about various integrations. It went something like: > Sales Guy 1: "Is integration X available? Let me check. I luckily happen to be sitting next to one of our integration developers. Let me put you on hold for a brief moment." > Sales Guy 1: "This wanker thinks he'll get the Ameritrade integration for free. We have that, right? What should I charge him?" > Sales Guy 2: "Yeah. Just tell him you spoke with your developer, and that the integration is custom, and will take some development time. Keep him on hold for a second to make it seem like you are working for him." > Sales Guy 1: (Eventually) "Thank you so much for your patience. I spoke with our developer. It's a tough integration and requires custom work, so it'll be an extra 12k. I hope you understand..."
- dragonsh 7y agoWell I also don’t understand, I have not used slack and don’t intend to use one either. It’s much worse and proprietary interface, I am happy with IRC and it’s support in emacs with ERC. I just can’t understand many open source project force users to use it. I can understand JavaScript and web development crowd vying to get on slack given the kind of IDE and tools, they use. I cannot bear the slow speed with which slack works compared to IRC in terminal, emacs or VI.
- flamingbuffalo 7y agoif you've "not used it" how can you say it's "worse" and "slow"?
- dragonsh 7y agoWhat I mean is not used in any of my projects or work. I have accessed it when working on Elm, and after loading it once cannot even understand why Elm a language which wants 0 runtime error in JavaScript can even accept such a slow system. Even if Elm wanted wanted a web user interface on top of IRC, they could have gone with discord app (although personally I still prefer IRC), which is far far ahead of slack when it comes to quality, latency and works much faster. But doesn't matter in a hurry to replace e-mail with something different companies are choosing much worse solution like Slack. Email, IRC are very good. Slack is a product of spending millions on advertising and marketing and be loss making for as long as possible and than list it to let it gamble on stock exchange or get acquired by bigger company. +---------+--------+---------+---------+---------+ | |ttm |1/30/2019|1/30/2018|1/30/2017| +---------+--------+---------+---------+---------+ |Operating|-540,530|-154,208 |-143,851 |-148,503 | |Income or| | | | | |Loss | | | | | +---------+--------+---------+---------+---------+
- zmj 7y agoBefore Slack, my company used HipChat. I would routinely not receive notifications or messages on mobile, or receive duplicate notifications or messages on multiple devices. Slack got that right. It’s not perfect, but it was a major upgrade.
- jamie_ca 7y agoCounterpoint, for the last few months when someone starts a 1:1 call with me, after I answer it it keeps ringing on my phone. Also, it has a persistent habit of my phone showing an "unread messages" notice, when I'm literally sitting at my laptop and have everything read.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- noelsusman 7y agoHave you seen their competition? Their success shouldn't be a mystery to anyone.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cactus2093 7y agoIt's crazy to remember as recently as like 2013 the company I was at used a jabber chat server. The recommended client was an open source, very barebones one with no design whatsoever. There was no searching through history other than the messages that had already been downloaded to you device, no mobile app, no images. Most people just used gchat instead even though that was discouraged, but the company group rooms were on the jabber chat so everyone had to use it somewhat. Even then it felt pretty dated, but the infrastructure team that ran it thought it was good enough so we kept it. Hipchat was a thing that was clearly better, I remember talk about it and I think some people pushed to switch to it, but it seemed like a daunting task and not all that important so it never happened. Then not too long after that, Slack had come out and one day I just happened to notice that the frontend team was chatting on a new app. I'm sure there were some frustrated conversations between them and the security team, we were big enough that we had a couple person security team and had some rules about only using approved software, but I guess not big enough that there were going to be any strict repercussions for breaking those rules. And that was that, a few more teams started using it, and at some point enough teams had it that we just officially switched. Between search and multi-client use it was clearly better than our corporate chat. The design made it more enjoyable to use. But the real killer feature was the low barrier to entry, I think it snuck into a lot of organizations in exactly this way by having a generous free plan and a web client so that anyone could just start using it without asking permission.
- epanchin 7y agoI despise some Slack features. The drafts folder and the wysiwyg editor. I’m still happy to use it overall, it’s a huge step up from Skype for Business.
- coremoff 7y agothe wysiwyg editor is optional now: Preferences > Advanced > Format messages with markup Drafts seems to also be universally despised, but they haven't yet done anything about it