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I hadn't heard of it. In case that's the case for others, "Quill is messaging for people that focus.": http://web.archive.org/web/20210301003300/https://quill.c

I hadn't heard of it. In case that's the case for others, "Quill is messaging for people that focus.": http://web.archive.org/web/20210301003300/https://quill.chat/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210301003300/https://quill.chat... Looking at that page, I guess it's Slack with some small twists? And this seems to confirm that: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/the-new-new-slack-quill/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/the-new-new-slack-quill/ Which may help explain why they're shutting down less than a year after launching. 10% improvements aren't enough to drive switching, especially against network-effect products like Slack. But having taken $14.5m in investment, you'd think they'd try a little harder.

coldpie 5y ago
> But having taken $14.5m in investment, you'd think they'd try a little harder. I thought this was how startups work? Rake in some VC cash with empty promises, sell off to some big company, execs retire, everyone's happy.
- chongli 5y ago
  everyone's happy. Everyone but the users who need to scramble to export their data -- without tools -- by Saturday.
spoiler 5y ago
I have no idea what makes people use Slack. We demoed it at our company, and most people hated it. I guess it's one of those things people start using when there's a handful of employees and then they just get stuck with it. The worst feature about Slack is its "threads" feature. You're effectively manically thread chasing or you just have to learn to not care about past conversations. The other annoying thing was input lag when typing sometimes. It was completely unpredictable when it happens (wasn't pc load, browser wasn't that busy, but i didn't check the profiler; internet was fine). It would come and go on its own. Not everyone had it either, and it seemed to be isolated to Linux machines. We demoed Zulip, but some people didn't like that one because the UI is... It looks like brutalist design applied to UI. Most of us were ok with it even if it's a bit "ugly" (it's not ugly, but I'd call it an acquired taste). Quill was supposed to fill this gap for us, but the CTO said that the $15/user/month price is too steep. Lol. We settled for the mediocre of both worlds: Mattermost. It's not great, but it's not shit either. You can't scroll in it (well you can, but you don't want to because it's buggy) and the search is crappy, bite you can usually find what you're looki for after a few tries.
- Veen 5y ago
  It's crap but it's better than email for remote team communication. And once you're in it's a pain in the arse to change to a different service, so people don't.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  Odd. We generally love Slack. I think you have to use it a little while for everyone to adopt sane norms for it, though. Among them is being quick to join and leave channels. A sales person has a question for me? They summon me to their channel where we chat for a bit. All done? I leave it so that I don’t see the rest of their chats. By now, if I see a conversation at all, there’s a 90% chance it’s relevant to me. Not saying that it’s the best possible solution, just that we’ve been pretty happy with it for the last several years.
  - spoiler 5y ago
    The leaving and joining channels is an interesting idea. I guess that kinda simulates Zulip's topics/threads feature to a degree. I guess that wouldn't have been too horrendous to do. I kinda do this with Mattermost, but I always feel awkward just leaving, so I leave after a few days usually lol. Aside: I love the threads/topics implementation in Discord. However, a lot of people don't want to use Discord for work (I'd probably make a separate account myself; I don't like job stuff seeping into my play time).
    - kstrauser 5y ago
      Yeah, that’s the “norms” part. After a while you get a feel for how long you need to stick around after you’re no longer part of the conversation. All that said, I love how Mattermost is coming along. Open source + on prem is a huge win in a lot of settings. For instance, I don’t think you could use Slack at all for HIPAA-covered talk. Last I looked you couldn’t sign a business associate agreement with them. You could use a properly secured internal service for that, though. For example, I know medical offices using Synology Chat for inside conversations like “we need to reschedule Joe Smith’s appointment”.
thrower123 5y ago
It's not an area where I would want to try to claw out a niche, when the 9000 pound gorilla is essentially giving away their product to everyone with an Office 365 subscription.
- wpietri 5y ago
  For sure. It's very much "where elephants dance" territory. Heck, I heard Slack's founder, Stewart Butterfield, on a podcast where he talks about the rich-get-richer dynamic that made doing Slack pretty easy once things got rolling. I can't imagine trying to compete against two competent companies with ~infinite money and a desire to own the space.

coldpie 5y ago

> But having taken $14.5m in investment, you'd think they'd try a little harder. I thought this was how startups work? Rake in some VC cash with empty promises, sell off to some big company, execs retire, everyone's happy.

chongli 5y ago
everyone's happy. Everyone but the users who need to scramble to export their data -- without tools -- by Saturday.

spoiler 5y ago

I have no idea what makes people use Slack. We demoed it at our company, and most people hated it. I guess it's one of those things people start using when there's a handful of employees and then they just get stuck with it. The worst feature about Slack is its "threads" feature. You're effectively manically thread chasing or you just have to learn to not care about past conversations. The other annoying thing was input lag when typing sometimes. It was completely unpredictable when it happens (wasn't pc load, browser wasn't that busy, but i didn't check the profiler; internet was fine). It would come and go on its own. Not everyone had it either, and it seemed to be isolated to Linux machines. We demoed Zulip, but some people didn't like that one because the UI is... It looks like brutalist design applied to UI. Most of us were ok with it even if it's a bit "ugly" (it's not ugly, but I'd call it an acquired taste). Quill was supposed to fill this gap for us, but the CTO said that the $15/user/month price is too steep. Lol. We settled for the mediocre of both worlds: Mattermost. It's not great, but it's not shit either. You can't scroll in it (well you can, but you don't want to because it's buggy) and the search is crappy, bite you can usually find what you're looki for after a few tries.

Veen 5y ago
It's crap but it's better than email for remote team communication. And once you're in it's a pain in the arse to change to a different service, so people don't.
kstrauser 5y ago
Odd. We generally love Slack. I think you have to use it a little while for everyone to adopt sane norms for it, though. Among them is being quick to join and leave channels. A sales person has a question for me? They summon me to their channel where we chat for a bit. All done? I leave it so that I don’t see the rest of their chats. By now, if I see a conversation at all, there’s a 90% chance it’s relevant to me. Not saying that it’s the best possible solution, just that we’ve been pretty happy with it for the last several years.
- spoiler 5y ago
  The leaving and joining channels is an interesting idea. I guess that kinda simulates Zulip's topics/threads feature to a degree. I guess that wouldn't have been too horrendous to do. I kinda do this with Mattermost, but I always feel awkward just leaving, so I leave after a few days usually lol. Aside: I love the threads/topics implementation in Discord. However, a lot of people don't want to use Discord for work (I'd probably make a separate account myself; I don't like job stuff seeping into my play time).
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    Yeah, that’s the “norms” part. After a while you get a feel for how long you need to stick around after you’re no longer part of the conversation. All that said, I love how Mattermost is coming along. Open source + on prem is a huge win in a lot of settings. For instance, I don’t think you could use Slack at all for HIPAA-covered talk. Last I looked you couldn’t sign a business associate agreement with them. You could use a properly secured internal service for that, though. For example, I know medical offices using Synology Chat for inside conversations like “we need to reschedule Joe Smith’s appointment”.

thrower123 5y ago

It's not an area where I would want to try to claw out a niche, when the 9000 pound gorilla is essentially giving away their product to everyone with an Office 365 subscription.

wpietri 5y ago
For sure. It's very much "where elephants dance" territory. Heck, I heard Slack's founder, Stewart Butterfield, on a podcast where he talks about the rich-get-richer dynamic that made doing Slack pretty easy once things got rolling. I can't imagine trying to compete against two competent companies with ~infinite money and a desire to own the space.