I've worked remotely or semi-remotely for years now. There's a definite hierarchy o communications where clearly articulating things becomes easier: In-person

I've worked remotely or semi-remotely for years now. There's a definite hierarchy o communications where clearly articulating things becomes easier: In-person > video > voice > IRC >> email >> I feel sorry if you're here. Slack (and its competitors) provides an amazing way to escalate the level of communication from IRC all the way to video without flipping through different apps. When in-office, I'd still much rather get a slack notification I can ignore for a couple minutes to finish up. A tap on the shoulder is an immediate and unavoidable interruption. Keeping records is also nice. I can easily search for where a question was answered a couple months ago instead of getting in someone's way yet again. Along the same lines, I find the drama complaint in the article to be rather strange. People who like conflict are going to fight with other people no matter what the medium. At least with Slack, you have a permanent record of what was said so the individual can be dealt with. If someone is that toxic, let them be another company's problem.