12 ms·

Twitter shut off its internal Slack, and now ‘everyone is barely working’

26 points by computerliker 4y ago

coldtea 4y ago
>In this as in so many other things, Twitter hasn’t paid its Slack bill. But that’s not why Slack went down: someone at Twitter manually shut off access, we’re told. Platformer was not able to learn the reason prior to publication, though the move suggests Musk may have turned against the communication app — or at least wants to see if Twitter can run without Slack and the expenses associated with it. I'd bet that it's not the insignificant cost of Slack for Twitter licenses that's the issue (even if it might be used as an excuse), but control. Musk doesn't want internal communications sent to some outside third party. And he's have them develop some internal chat or get a self-hosted option. Even if I am wrong, and it could be the cost, this alternative should have been considered in the article (as well as others). In general, the article is a total case of "uncharitable interpreation". >Another worker called the disappearance of Slack the “proverbial final straw.” So, that guy survived mass layoffs, accepted lots of changes to the company and mission, and didn't quit, but Slack being removed is what really got him? Or did The Verge specifically looked around for clowns to quote?
- rsynnott 4y ago
  I mean, it’s not just a chat app, or at least that’s not normally how companies treat it. At any company that’s used slack for a few years you’ll have a bewildering variety of bots, auto responders, meaningful emoji etc that facilitate processes (I assume this is the case with Teams etc, too; basically any easily extensible thing that everyone in a big company uses will inevitably take on a life of its own through extension). Their whole job may have become borderline impossible because the tool they use broke without warning. Perhaps you should apply your own advice about uncharitable interpretations, which seems to apply much better to this employee than to Twitter (there is no obvious charitable interpretation to killing a major productivity tool with no warning, and the reason's largely irrelevant).
- snek_case 4y ago
  > In general, the article is a total case of "uncharitable interpreation". Literally everything musk does has 100 news articles published with the most uncharitable interpretation possible. Hating on him has become a sport.
- rospaya 4y ago
  > So, that guy survived mass layoffs, accepted lots of changes to the company and mission, and didn't quit, but Slack being removed is what really got him? Maybe that's why it's called the last straw, not the first one?
  - coldtea 4y ago
    If you've been in turn kicked, stabbed, and shot, then deciding somebody using a water pistol against you is "the last straw" is absurd and idiotic, even if technically correct (it came, after all, last in chronological order)
    - juliusgeo 4y ago
      The reason the phrase was coined to describe exactly that kind of illogical reaction you are describing. It is used to describe seemingly insignificant additions that will cause people to buckle.
      - coldtea 4y ago
        Not all illogical reactions are made the same. Some just border on the comical more than others - as in, "bro, THAT'S what finally broke you?" And this "final straw" is more like that one scene from Airplane 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbv5B71KmkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbv5B71KmkA
        juliusgeo 4y ago
        The severity of the reaction doesn’t really matter as long as it’s illogical in relation to the last input
        coldtea 4y ago
        I wasn't pointing at the severity of the reaction (eiter in the clip, or in this thread). The severity of the reaction is the second joke in that clip, but I was referring to the main joke: that the passengers reaction comes when the stewardess reveals there's no more coffee, not at all the abdolutely horrible things said before. That part would be funny even if it was shown as regular outrage and some loud complaints. Because, even though a "straw that broke the camel's back" response is by definition about having an outburst at a smaller slight as opposed to one of the biggers ones that preceded it, when the final slight is extremely out of proportion compared to the previous ones, having that be "the final straw" becomes farcical. In other words, there's illogical and there's really really illogical - to the point of being comical.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  Generally speaking if your boat is sinking, the last thing you want to do is cut some more holes in it to get it to sink faster before you have a new boat ready. Shutting off Slack before you have a new 'internal chat system' as you've said is insanity. How can you not recognize that and immediately jump to some 4d chess defense?
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >Shutting off Slack before you have a new 'internal chat system' as you've said is insanity. How can you not recognize that and immediately jump to some 4d chess defense? No need for any "4d chess defense". There was a lot of cheap checkers cheating in the article though. For god's sake, he didn't cut the electricity in the data center (which would actually fit the "sky is falling" narrative), he just cut access to a glorified enterprise chat app. They can always use email, bug trackers, task management, their enterprise intranet collaboration and discussion tools, and several other things besides, or, god forbid, have teleconferences, pick up the phone, or discuss it face to face in the office. If they can't work with those, then lack of Slack isn't the problem...
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      I can only come to the conclusion that this is Elon Musk’s HN account.
    - fzeroracer 4y ago
      You do realize the article quotes exactly why losing slack is a problem, yeah? Slack is a store of information. People will have long threads on solving bugs, ops issues, error logs and more because that's where you talk about things. It also stores history and has history from people that worked at Twitter before they were laid off. Do you actually do software development? Have you worked with Slack before? Because at almost every place I've worked at it serves as a large store of easily indexable information around a variety of issues. If an issue occurred 10 months ago and is occurring again but the engineer that solved the issue is gone because of Musk firing a bunch of people you can't just email someone that doesn't exist anymore.
- croes 4y ago
  From the article >For Twitter employees, Slack is more than a way to message colleagues: it’s also a store of institutional memory, preserved in documents that workers have had to rely on more and more since Musk purged thousands of employees since taking over. Losing vital documentation makes work unnecessary hard.
- ideamotor 4y ago
  That’s the kind of horse blinder vision of narrow yet obsessive concerns and that I fully expect from someone that has followed Musk this far.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    It's always refreshing to read such an unbiased comment as yours, that doesn't just jump on the "current thing" of hating Musk
    - ideamotor 4y ago
      You mean the guy I’ve criticized and considered a fraud since I first sat into a Tesla is 2011?
      - coldtea 4y ago
        This helps absolve you from the "jumping on the bandwagon" part. Kind of feel like it's probably not the best defense against the "biased" thing through...
        ideamotor 4y ago
        Oh I’m definitely biased.
- BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
  "And he's have them develop some internal chat or get a self-hosted option." If this was the case, the employees would know about it, rather than be shocked and unable to work. I think your problem is that you think what Elon is doing makes sense. I did this countless times since November. I kept thinking "this guy surely knows what he's doing" and building plausible excuses about what I'm reading. But nope. It's just panicky arrogant nonsense. Always has been. And it never ends.
  - not_a_shill 4y ago
    >rather than be shocked and unable to work.. What proof did the disgruntled employee give you that made you believe this?
    - BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
      First, it's not one employee, but many employees. Second, if after all that has happened in the last 4 months you're an employee who is not "disgruntled", something's wrong with you.
      - not_a_shill 4y ago
        >First, it's not one employee, but many employees. If this is all you've got, you're putting more trust in The Verge than they've earned. They have what, one direct quote from an anonymous venting app that proves that no one is working?
        BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
        I don't care about The Verge, I've been tracking this since November. But you do you.
        not_a_shill 4y ago
        Let me reiterate that the only evidence you've provided is wishful thinking.
- joegahona 4y ago
  The “Twitter hasn’t paid its Slack bill” is just a jab at Musk. I’m fairly certain that it would revert to a free plan and not just go down. The bigger question, which it sounds like Verge wasn’t able to answer, is the motivation for intentionally turning it off. Not that it’s helpful to employees looking for past messages, but a complete data dump of all of Slack prior to Musk’s arrival must exist — isn’t that what they needed to do all those Twitter Files screeds?
- Dudelander 4y ago
  Elon had every programmer literally print out their code on paper. Occom's razer suggests that he just didn't know what Slack was and thought it wasn't important.
entrepy123 4y ago
My metaphorical money says they switch to Matrix. (Probably not hosted by Element, but maybe.)

26 points by computerliker 4y ago

>In this as in so many other things, Twitter hasn’t paid its Slack bill. But that’s not why Slack went down: someone at Twitter manually shut off access, we’re told. Platformer was not able to learn the reason prior to publication, though the move suggests Musk may have turned against the communication app — or at least wants to see if Twitter can run without Slack and the expenses associated with it. I'd bet that it's not the insignificant cost of Slack for Twitter licenses that's the issue (even if it might be used as an excuse), but control. Musk doesn't want internal communications sent to some outside third party. And he's have them develop some internal chat or get a self-hosted option. Even if I am wrong, and it could be the cost, this alternative should have been considered in the article (as well as others). In general, the article is a total case of "uncharitable interpreation". >Another worker called the disappearance of Slack the “proverbial final straw.” So, that guy survived mass layoffs, accepted lots of changes to the company and mission, and didn't quit, but Slack being removed is what really got him? Or did The Verge specifically looked around for clowns to quote?

rsynnott 4y ago
I mean, it’s not just a chat app, or at least that’s not normally how companies treat it. At any company that’s used slack for a few years you’ll have a bewildering variety of bots, auto responders, meaningful emoji etc that facilitate processes (I assume this is the case with Teams etc, too; basically any easily extensible thing that everyone in a big company uses will inevitably take on a life of its own through extension). Their whole job may have become borderline impossible because the tool they use broke without warning. Perhaps you should apply your own advice about uncharitable interpretations, which seems to apply much better to this employee than to Twitter (there is no obvious charitable interpretation to killing a major productivity tool with no warning, and the reason's largely irrelevant).
snek_case 4y ago
> In general, the article is a total case of "uncharitable interpreation". Literally everything musk does has 100 news articles published with the most uncharitable interpretation possible. Hating on him has become a sport.
rospaya 4y ago
> So, that guy survived mass layoffs, accepted lots of changes to the company and mission, and didn't quit, but Slack being removed is what really got him? Maybe that's why it's called the last straw, not the first one?
- coldtea 4y ago
  If you've been in turn kicked, stabbed, and shot, then deciding somebody using a water pistol against you is "the last straw" is absurd and idiotic, even if technically correct (it came, after all, last in chronological order)
  - juliusgeo 4y ago
    The reason the phrase was coined to describe exactly that kind of illogical reaction you are describing. It is used to describe seemingly insignificant additions that will cause people to buckle.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      Not all illogical reactions are made the same. Some just border on the comical more than others - as in, "bro, THAT'S what finally broke you?" And this "final straw" is more like that one scene from Airplane 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbv5B71KmkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbv5B71KmkA
      - juliusgeo 4y ago
        The severity of the reaction doesn’t really matter as long as it’s illogical in relation to the last input
        coldtea 4y ago
        I wasn't pointing at the severity of the reaction (eiter in the clip, or in this thread). The severity of the reaction is the second joke in that clip, but I was referring to the main joke: that the passengers reaction comes when the stewardess reveals there's no more coffee, not at all the abdolutely horrible things said before. That part would be funny even if it was shown as regular outrage and some loud complaints. Because, even though a "straw that broke the camel's back" response is by definition about having an outburst at a smaller slight as opposed to one of the biggers ones that preceded it, when the final slight is extremely out of proportion compared to the previous ones, having that be "the final straw" becomes farcical. In other words, there's illogical and there's really really illogical - to the point of being comical.
fzeroracer 4y ago
Generally speaking if your boat is sinking, the last thing you want to do is cut some more holes in it to get it to sink faster before you have a new boat ready. Shutting off Slack before you have a new 'internal chat system' as you've said is insanity. How can you not recognize that and immediately jump to some 4d chess defense?
- coldtea 4y ago
  >Shutting off Slack before you have a new 'internal chat system' as you've said is insanity. How can you not recognize that and immediately jump to some 4d chess defense? No need for any "4d chess defense". There was a lot of cheap checkers cheating in the article though. For god's sake, he didn't cut the electricity in the data center (which would actually fit the "sky is falling" narrative), he just cut access to a glorified enterprise chat app. They can always use email, bug trackers, task management, their enterprise intranet collaboration and discussion tools, and several other things besides, or, god forbid, have teleconferences, pick up the phone, or discuss it face to face in the office. If they can't work with those, then lack of Slack isn't the problem...
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    I can only come to the conclusion that this is Elon Musk’s HN account.
  - fzeroracer 4y ago
    You do realize the article quotes exactly why losing slack is a problem, yeah? Slack is a store of information. People will have long threads on solving bugs, ops issues, error logs and more because that's where you talk about things. It also stores history and has history from people that worked at Twitter before they were laid off. Do you actually do software development? Have you worked with Slack before? Because at almost every place I've worked at it serves as a large store of easily indexable information around a variety of issues. If an issue occurred 10 months ago and is occurring again but the engineer that solved the issue is gone because of Musk firing a bunch of people you can't just email someone that doesn't exist anymore.
croes 4y ago
From the article >For Twitter employees, Slack is more than a way to message colleagues: it’s also a store of institutional memory, preserved in documents that workers have had to rely on more and more since Musk purged thousands of employees since taking over. Losing vital documentation makes work unnecessary hard.
ideamotor 4y ago
That’s the kind of horse blinder vision of narrow yet obsessive concerns and that I fully expect from someone that has followed Musk this far.
- coldtea 4y ago
  It's always refreshing to read such an unbiased comment as yours, that doesn't just jump on the "current thing" of hating Musk
  - ideamotor 4y ago
    You mean the guy I’ve criticized and considered a fraud since I first sat into a Tesla is 2011?
    - coldtea 4y ago
      This helps absolve you from the "jumping on the bandwagon" part. Kind of feel like it's probably not the best defense against the "biased" thing through...
      - ideamotor 4y ago
        Oh I’m definitely biased.
BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
"And he's have them develop some internal chat or get a self-hosted option." If this was the case, the employees would know about it, rather than be shocked and unable to work. I think your problem is that you think what Elon is doing makes sense. I did this countless times since November. I kept thinking "this guy surely knows what he's doing" and building plausible excuses about what I'm reading. But nope. It's just panicky arrogant nonsense. Always has been. And it never ends.
- not_a_shill 4y ago
  >rather than be shocked and unable to work.. What proof did the disgruntled employee give you that made you believe this?
  - BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
    First, it's not one employee, but many employees. Second, if after all that has happened in the last 4 months you're an employee who is not "disgruntled", something's wrong with you.
    - not_a_shill 4y ago
      >First, it's not one employee, but many employees. If this is all you've got, you're putting more trust in The Verge than they've earned. They have what, one direct quote from an anonymous venting app that proves that no one is working?
      - BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
        I don't care about The Verge, I've been tracking this since November. But you do you.
        not_a_shill 4y ago
        Let me reiterate that the only evidence you've provided is wishful thinking.
joegahona 4y ago
The “Twitter hasn’t paid its Slack bill” is just a jab at Musk. I’m fairly certain that it would revert to a free plan and not just go down. The bigger question, which it sounds like Verge wasn’t able to answer, is the motivation for intentionally turning it off. Not that it’s helpful to employees looking for past messages, but a complete data dump of all of Slack prior to Musk’s arrival must exist — isn’t that what they needed to do all those Twitter Files screeds?
Dudelander 4y ago
Elon had every programmer literally print out their code on paper. Occom's razer suggests that he just didn't know what Slack was and thought it wasn't important.

entrepy123 4y ago

My metaphorical money says they switch to Matrix. (Probably not hosted by Element, but maybe.)