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> 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 benevo
by josteink 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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 7y agoYes, and there was plenty of opportunity for someone to develop a client that scratches all of those itches. But they didn't.