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Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)
- alexandernst 6y agoBecause whenever somebody asked for: * 24/7 presence, the reply was "you can do that with a bouncer" * backlog, the reply was "you can do that with a bouncer" * full text search, the reply was "that's up to the client implementation" * file sharing, the reply was "it's already possible with XDCC" and so on and so forth. Basically, it's not that Slack is great, it's because IRC as a whole just refused to adapt to what users actually wanted/needed.
- kazinator 6y agoIt's because everyone wanted a proprietary chat system, whose single client EXE for Windows chews 400+ megs of RAM.
- dijit 6y agoRealistically, people don't tend to care about how much ram they're using, that's why PWA's are able to take the jobs of native applications, and people are even happy about it. People only care if there's not enough resources.
- lonelappde 6y agoThere's never enough resources.
- bzb3 6y agoBarely anybody cares that the protocol is open, and 400 MB of ram is pretty much nothing in 2020
- dijit 6y agoMore like nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. (although, that's not technically true since irccloud does all the things you just mentioned)
- josteink 6y ago> nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. Slack is a closed-source for-profit SaaS, ruled by a single benevolent company. IRC is an open protocol-specification with a multitude of clients, servers and networks. You couldn’t find better apples and oranges for comparison if you tried.
- dijit 6y agoI agree completely. But we're talking about reasons people ended up choosing slack over something like IRC (or, really, any open protocol instant messaging specification). The grand-parent comment raises good points, people want these things, being connected and reachable while not being connected to the server with any client and having a context later on. These are problems that can be solved but nobody has put effort into making a sexy product to do it. (and monetising that kind of product might be troublesome)
- josteink 6y ago> nobody has put effort into making a sexy product Again we are comparing a product to a protocol. I’m just pointing out that this is not a reasonable comparison. There were multiple web-enabled IRC bouncers (closed products) which would be easy to use for anyone, including non-techsavy people. But evidently the majority of IRC-users were fine without that and preferred the traditional client-server-protocol realm.
- dijit 6y agoIRC is more than a protocol, it’s an ecosystem. You cannot simply talk about IRC in complete isolation. It’s akin to comparing SMTP with chrome. You have to include the clients and surrounding infrastructure.
- robjan 6y agoYes, and there was plenty of opportunity for someone to develop a client that scratches all of those itches. But they didn't.
- lidHanteyk 6y agoThe replies really should be "no, stop wanting that." IRC is not meant for such interactions, and is built around different social expectations. If you want 24/7 presence, then you ought to justify it socially, because there is a qualitative cultural difference between folks who regularly idle on IRC vs. folks who are only connected to IRC when they actively want to discuss something. Similarly, backlogs are only marginally useful and are usually a security risk, but the typical client does offer full-text search through IRC backlogs, when needed, and I'm not sure why that's a problem for users. It's obvious why Slack wins for businesses: Because it gives businesses greater control and legibility over their employees' work habits and decision-making. DCC or any other P2P connection is anathema to this sort of control. Users want different things. They want both plain text and rich text, and similarly, they want both plain chat and rich chat. Oh, and aside from all of this, there is a working group [0] which publishes proposals for modernization of the IRC protocol. Adoption rates are low, but perhaps that should tell you something about what users actually want. [0] https://ircv3.net/ https://ircv3.net/
- drngdds 6y ago>Adoption rates are low, but perhaps that should tell you something about what users actually want. I think it tells you that everyone who wants rich chat (which is most people, btw) already left for Slack or Discord.
- Latty 6y agoFrankly, it reminds me a lot of XHTML vs HTML5. I buy all the arguments XHTML had, I like the vision it had for the internet. It also wasn't what actual end-users valued, and something that offered that won out because it provided more value, even if it didn't pursue the same vision.
- nabla9 6y agoIn other words: protocols lose to proprietary services.
- BubRoss 6y agoStagnant protocols lose to proprietary services.
- bsdubernerd 6y agoI like the ephemeral nature of IRC. It's supposed to be for real-time communication, the "chat" in irC, not for keeping bouncers. Bouncers defeat the point of IRC entirely. I also use slack btw, and discord, and matrix too, so I fully understand the importance of a backlog, and having server caching for files is much more convenient than using an additional sharing site. IRC is not perfect, but for what it does is pretty nice. Having a customizable backlog per-channel would solve most of the issues you have with reconnects and people's expectation. I'd love this backlog to be short by default though (<10m). X/DCC is plainly annoying and it just breaks too often nowdays. Server assist, even for 1-on-1 sharing would be very useful. Sharing one image with a group of people while working on something is really, _really_ useful and having a common way of doing it that integrates with the chat is very helpful. Reasonable limits and auto-expiration (matching the backlog length or even shorter) would also be very useful. We know what introducing file sharing does to a chat though. Instant memes pop up. I love how IRC channels look compared to all modern equivalents: just boring text, and minimal text formatting. If file sharing is added, I wished it would never be with inline formatting to keep it the same. I don't care for search. Storing info in these chat mediums is a horrible, _HORRIBLE_ way to reference anything. Short backlogs are the only way to enforce people to store valuable content where it belongs. Searching through the backlog would then be no different than what irc clients already implement (simple look-back). Keep in mind text-only chats are so compact that having a full day worth of backlog and downloading that from a cold-cache is still cheaper than getting a single inline animated gif. Just for reference. I hate slack threads and how people tend to use them. I wished people would simply create ephemeral chats instead. I find all matrix clients to be absolutely horrendous for exactly the same reasons. They become cesspools of memes and repository of information that are terrible to use. Honestly, the best way to use matrix seems to be gomux, or weechat via a matrix plugin, simply because these clients _ENFORCE_ a certain kind of usage that keeps the TEXT in the chat in the center. Sadly, both are incredibly limited. Cannot get ephemeral channels to work on weechat (which would be the "modern" equivalent of a query with multiple parties). Channel discovery is horrible. But the backlog does help a lot for reconnections. So does the built-in file sharing. It seems that the userbase of matrix has a different concept of what a chat should be, and that's why I still prefer IRC for now.
- 6y ago
- petepete 6y agoThe main problem is that the IRC standard wasn't kept up to date. It's barely changed in the last 25 years. The things that IRC is missing, as listed above, could easily have been added.
- RickJWagner 6y agoBecause Slack allows you to paste memes, and thus get the tiny dopamine hit.
- dajohnson89 6y agoirc doesn't allow memes?
- gijoeyguerra 6y agoit was giphy. that's why.
- hashkb 6y agoCan we call it link unfurling in general? That's what really attracted me at first. (And emoji ofc)
- ViViDboarder 6y agoThe IRC client I use/d inlining of images and gifs. “Reactions”, custom emoji, ease of integration (webhooks), and ease of signup are the things I hear quite often.
- ejflick 6y agoAlso the ability to upload custom emojis.
- JoBrad 6y agoThis is actually a huge + for any extensible chat client. We send alerts from various monitoring solutions and use emoji to quickly identify the environment and app. Makes it very easy to understand exactly what is going on.
- mstudio 6y agoThis article is comparing apples to oranges. IRC is a protocol, Slack is a client/app that uses protocols (one of which used to be IRC). Many IRC clients, although beloved by some users, are rough around the edges. In my opinion, Slack has "won" over other clients because of UX: it's extremely easy to sign-up, understand, and use productively. Plus, even large orgs (ours included), can use the free version if they're OK with having chat history disappear after a few days/weeks.
- apple4ever 6y agoSlack made the process easy, and with emojis and slash commands, fun and useful. I think another benefit to slack is you can come back to it and see the history. IRC is ephemeral unless you stick to a single device and leave it running. That's impossible for a mobile phone. It frustrates me that some large projects (ex Ansible) who insist on all discussions there, and explicitly ignore things like GitHub issues.
- Spivak 6y agoI am in no way saying that this isn't a barrier to entry (and if we're honest I think that barrier is an intentional choice) but you're supposed run a bouncer/logger and just connect your client to that. It's always weird to me that IRC didn't evolve like email with something like IMAP.
- 1337shadow 6y ago> another benefit to slack is you can come back to it and see the history As long as you pay the price.
- vinni2 6y agoWasn’t it because you can’t get notifications from IRC?
- Tagbert 6y agoAnd I have those notifications turned off. Regardless of that, Slack is a complete and easy to understand solution. IRC is a collection of unknowns where each user ends up with a different implementation and may not be satisfied with where they end up.
- axegon_ 6y agoI still kind of struggle to understand why Slack is so popular within the corporate world. It is a good choice when you have some public initiative and let people swarm in, yes. But when it comes to private entities(I'm talking about large corporations), I really don't get it. I've been using MatterMost for years and while it had a rough start, at this point I'd take it over Slack any day of the week. Functionality is pretty much the same, integrations are much more simplified(I use them a lot to say the least and from my point of view, all the API's work as a charm) and at the end of the day, you are the owner of your data. So it is a genuine question: What gives?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- quicklime 6y agoIn a lot of corporate environments, "self-hosted" is not an advantage if you're the one trying to set up something new. In order to self-host, you have to go through your corporate IT department to provision servers. This alone can take 6 or 12 months, and you still have to find someone to maintain the service. And the kind of companies that value self-hosting will usually want this to be set up inside the company's internal network. So you'll have a bunch of firewall issues to get through, otherwise good luck getting your users to connect to some non-publicly-accessible server from their phones. Other comments talk about how Slack nailed the UX for users to join a Slack workspace. But they also nailed the UX for getting a workspace set up in the first place. (Well ok the whole idea of separate accounts per workspace thing is a bit of a mess, but they nailed everything else)
- JoBrad 6y agoIt took _forever_ to get a self-hosted Jabber-based chat client going at a mid-sized corporation, about 10 years ago. Someone went “rogue” and set a server up anyway. Our security staff began blocking ports, so it eventually died anyway... in favor of Skype and Yammer. All because no one wanted to host chat history and a server.
- sumedh 6y ago
- jimmyvalmer 6y agoBecause my mom can figure out Slack, but not IRC. Isn't the "mom test" obvious to all by now?
- stereolambda 6y agoI think the key deciding factor isn't even technical, but: if you want to enter Slack (or Zoom, or similar), it is streamlined, easy and clear what you need to do. Compare it to IRC, where you have to find a client, make the choice, and make many other small decisions. It's also about immediate benefit: the way many people try to start with IRC involves searching for rooms and trying to somehow fit in and enter the conversation, while the local culture may not be welcoming or easy to get into. That said, I've succeeded in gradually getting some of my friends onto Riot/Matrix. To be clear, I did it without much technical/ideological evangelizing or being obtuse, just on the basis of them wanting to talk to me and in our social group. But Riot is also at least nice-looking, multiplatform, has modern features etc. Things that are still annoying: 1. Dealing with Riot/Matrix system/client confusion. Most people don't care about such distinctions, I should probably just focus on talking about Riot. (I understand that developers may choose to do different in their communication) 2. Entering into 1/1 conversations. I still don't know/remember how to reliably do it with a new person, always did it by trial and error by trying to invite in ways X and Y etc. It probably requires finding the opt-in into email invitations in the configuration by each participant. I understand these are some anti-stalking measures, but God is it annoying.
- ryukafalz 6y ago> Dealing with Riot/Matrix system/client confusion. Most people don't care about such distinctions, I should probably just focus on talking about Riot. The thing I haven’t figured out is... why would people find this hard to understand for chat, but not for email? Everyone uses email, and everyone knows they can send an email to whatever email address they want no matter who their provider is.
- truckerbill 6y agoMost people are chained to a hotmail or gmail and don’t really understand the underlying architecture in my experience.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y agoBecause at some point all corporate firewalls were configured to block all incoming traffic except port 80. Then everything died out: News, Irc, and now finally FTP.
- grumple 6y agoBecause all you have to do is go to the website, follow a link, log in, and boom, easily accessible chat. Has nothing to do with the protocol.
- flas9sd 6y agoI concur, a hosted thelounge client instance brought me back to IRC after a decade of absence, giving me Log history and recoverable state. If the expectation is to go on public record (vs. private p2p chat) only user experience decides for group chat, not the underlying technology. Though IRC can't replicate threads, that is the only nitpick. In high volume channels replies to old questions are fine and the dynamic caused by seemingly disjoint replies can be learned.
- enlyth 6y agoI consider one of the biggest deal-breakers being able to snip part of your screen with a keyboard shortcut and Ctrl-V it into the client for everyone to see it inline, seamlessly. You don't have to mess around with image uploaders or open image links externally in your browser. Want to send a file to someone? Drag and drop, done. No hassle and it works for everyone, in the same way, without having to explain anything, use an external website, install a dependency, or change a setting. Same as with Discord, these modern chat clients support richer content, have nicer looking UIs, better UX which draw more people in. It's more fun to code bots for them because you can make them do amazing stuff, as the output doesn't just have to be plain text, but it can also be rich content like charts, embeds, propmts that can trigger multiple actions by selecting a reaction emoji, you get the idea. Just overall a great, low friction and _modern_ experience.
- TomMarius 6y agoI remember we used tools that saved the snip to a specified directory, targeted it at Dropbox public folder, and then there was an app or maybe config option that pushed url of any new file in the public directory to clipboard. Was even better because you had the URL immediately, without waiting for upload.
- alexhutcheson 6y agoSlack wasn't competing with IRC. By the time Slack launched, IRC usage within companies was a very tiny slice of the market, mainly by very technical people. Slack was competing with Microsoft Lync, Google Talk, HipChat, Campfire, and the various other "IM for businesses" software products that were available in 2013. Yes, Slack borrowed some of the better features from IRC, which helped drive its popularity, but very, very few companies that are currently paying for Slack would have considered IRC to be a reasonable alternative.
- floatingatoll 6y agoSlack won over IRC for me by prohibiting anonymous users. Simply verifying their emails or having it be invite-approvals only was enough to improve my experience dramatically versus IRC’s endless anonymous harassment.
- def8cefe 6y agoIf you implement services on an IRC server you can do the same.
- floatingatoll 6y agoFreeNode doesn’t, not do many others. The unstated assumption here is that it’s easy to decentralize IRC because “run your own server”, but it’s not easy to run your own IRC server, nor to time-efficiently share how to configure IRC clients on how to connect to it using SASL.
- def8cefe 6y agoFreenode does run services, just maybe not ones that do what you want. Slack is definitely easier to administer. just pointing out the desired level of control is possible with an IRC server, contrary to what the comment I replied to said.
- 1337shadow 6y agoIt looks to me like anonymous harassers on IRC would not really be blocked by email validation... As such, it's probably just a matter of time before public Slack rooms become their target.
- floatingatoll 6y agoThe definition of 'public' is not equivalent for IRC and for Slack. IRC anope-style email verification simply requires that you are able to initiate a TCP connection to the IRC server. If you can do so, you can have a verified account. This kind of "public" is vulnerable to harassment as you describe. Slack additionally requires an invitation by a workspace owner for all new users who wish to join, excepting only domains where the owner permits users to join without invitation using a special invite link. Anyone who invites harassers will find themselves under Slack's microscope as well. Owners who enable automatic invite approvals for e.g. @gmail.com or @throwaway.com that result in harassment can expect to find themselves banned by Slack and their Slack shutdown. While in theory this kind of "public" could be abused to some degree, it does not permit the 'anonymous' abuse that IRC's kind of "public" does. If an IRC network was set up to require that existing users put their reputation on the line for new users, and in cases of harassment both the new and existing user were banned, then that would be a far more tenable system than what we have today. There's nothing that requires this to be unique to Slack. It just happens that Slack is willing to turn users away if they don't like it, and so as a result their network is baseline safer than virtually all IRC networks — such as Freenode.
- Lapsa 6y agocause of annoying gif meme posting. and the battle has just began
- dusted 6y agoIt dind't, yet at least. Let's see which one is still working in 20 years :)