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Slack's business model has always been that you give them all your most critical data and they sell you access to it. This is basically the business model of t
by kragen 1y ago
Slack's business model has always been that you give them all your most critical data and they sell you access to it. This is basically the business model of the traditional kind of ransomware, before people got better at making backups.
You probably should expect large bill increases over time from ransomware-as-a-service companies like Slack. Not all of them—people are capable of behaving decently—but probably the nature of the category is such that you should expect it of most of them.
When switching providers is impossible, the pricing of maximum profit for the provider is the pricing where the buyer is exactly zero. Slack presumably doesn't have quite enough information about their clients' businesses to calibrate this exactly, but if they can approach it approximately, they'll make a lot of money; even though they drive some of their customers out of business, those losses are compensated for by the higher revenues from their surviving customers.
- dwedge 1y agoI was cancelling my annual slack premium last month and had to click to acknowledge that some of my members are using the AI features and they will lose access to them. They then offered me a discount and if I refused there was another checkbox where I accepted that I was about to cause disruption for other staff. I was tempted to take the deal until that point, but I'm the only member of the organisation and I absolutely do not use their AI
- chaboud 1y agoThat sounds quite a bit like fraud.
- nottorp 1y agoPretty sure it's perfectly legal marketing at least in the US.
- wongarsu 1y agoThey are verifiably false statements made for the purpose of monetary gain. I guess the question would hinge on intent: did they just forget to check if anyone is using those features and if there is anyone who would be disrupted, or are they intentionally deceiving users by purposefully not checking?
- gpvos 1y agoAnyone except an American judge can see that this is intentional.
- fluoridation 1y agoBy the spirit of the law, yes, it likely is fraud. I doubt you could argue it is by the letter of it, though. Normally fraud involves lying to someone to get them to enter into a business relationship with you, not to keep one. Besides, regardless of how many people were using specific features of it, the service is what it is. This wouldn't be unlike you calling your ISP to cancel your subscription and they asking you if you're sure you want to cancel such a great service. If the service factually sucks ass compared to other providers wouldn't make it fraud. All that matters is that it meets the specifications that were sold to you.
- pests 1y agoThey’re not telling you its great tho. To continue your analogy, you call your ISP to cancel and they say “are you sure? Two other people are using it as we speak!” and you live alone knowing that’s impossible.
- fluoridation 1y agoIt wasn't an analogy, it was a comparison. I wasn't trying to produce an analogous situation. My point is that a company lying to you about their service while you're trying to cancel wouldn't necessarily constitute fraud. If the ISP lying to you in the way I said wouldn't be fraud, then "they are verifiably false statements made for the purpose of monetary gain" does not compellingly argue that Slack's lie is fraud. An example of something that would be fraudulent: "stay with us and we'll give you 1000 AI credits", but then if you don't cancel they only give you 100.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Barbing 1y agoFixed! Disabled those messages wherever org size = 1. Thank you, Slack* (*not actually Slack just annoyed by this scheme, boo)
- heavyset_go 1y agoIt's just incredible that billion dollar companies are copying the dark patterns from last decade's shadiest developers.
- portaouflop 1y agoOn the contrary it is extremely natural that they do this - when the only thing that matters is revenue and morals are just a roadblock this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do
- franga2000 1y agoWhat's the difference? Ransomware gangs aren't evil, they just want to make easy money and don't care about morals. That is also the definition of a for-profit company.
- jama211 1y agoOh so there’s a history of dark patterns too? Colour me surprised.
- bell-cot 1y ago> You probably should expect large bill increases over time [...] Not all of them—people are capable of behaving decently—but probably [...] Sooner or later, expect any decent ones to be bought out, by orgs determined to "unlock value" (or whatever the current PE-speak for fully exploiting ransomware is).
- octo888 1y agoThis can be generalised to a lot of SaaS
- jrochkind1 1y agoI'm not following what "the pricing where the buyer is exactly zero" means. Typo?
- erikerikson 1y agoNot the OP but I'm fairly certain that if you change "buyer" to "difference between the charge and the switching cost" you'll understand their intended meaning.
- kragen 1y agoThank you for the correction! I meant to type "the pricing where the buyer's remaining profit is exactly zero", and I'm not sure whether I accidentally deleted some text or what. I was pretty tired.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rhetocj23 1y ago"This is basically the business model of the traditional kind of ransomware" This is basically it. Nobody frames it this way. But once you see it lol.. your eyes open up to what really goes on behind the scenes at Slack et al.