Ask HN: Why do people love Slack? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#21

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

ruffrey wrote: post #8

JohnFen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because we've tried Teams? That scans. I hate chat apps, personally, but we are required to use Teams at my workplace. Teams is truly horrendous. I would strongly prefer that we used Slack.

Microsoft Teams really is horrendous. I've used a lot of chat apps over decades. Teams might be the first one that manages to be _confusing_ - a feat I'd never seen in a chat app - because of the way it rearranges new threads, yet hides the recent part of the thread. Plus various other half-implemented features. The wiki and sharepoint/file integration doesn't work very well. There's no wiki search. It's super easy t…

Worst is the new thread vs reply are confusing... I like in Android that the new thread is a separate floating button to the bottom/right... they should use that UX for their web/desktop interface.

There are a few things I do like better with teams. I haven't used slack much since before it had its' own voice conf/chat, used to use the hangouts integration for that.

In the end, there's parts about them all that suck... I think the biggest mistake with Teams is actually using wiki and files in more than the main channel on very few team groups. Also, creating more team groups is a big issue. I see the same happen with slack, but it's less intrusive.

With slack, I hate that multi-org logins are a pain, if you're in multiple communities.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#22

Post by nineteen999 » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

I don't love it at all, haven't used it since the last Web 1.9 SaaS company I worked in, and hopefully never will again. I found the SNR to be too low, but perhaps that reflects more on that particular company than Slack itself.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#23

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

meagher wrote: post #10

BoysenberryPi wrote: post #4

Every time someone ask this question I think people are forgetting that Slack was the first of these SaaS chat programs to find major success. Discord, Teams, and everything else came riding on the heels of Slack's success. While it might just be "another chat app" now, at the time Slack was an easy to setup tool with tons of integrations.

And before Slack, HipChat was quite good.

Before HipChat was Skype-for-Business...uh... Lync... uh... Office Communications Server... uh... Exchange Server Instant Messaging (using Windows XP’s Windows Messenger) back in 2001!

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#24

Post by sethammons » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

I have a few features I want in a work chat app:

Room topic with link support, private rooms, the ability to add more people to that room, direct messaging, phone notifications (and proper sync and the ability to set do-not-disturb), and emoji/gifs. I know some folks don't like those, but I think they are fun and help convey emotion that is otherwise lost in text.

Nice to haves: Search, pinned items, api for bot integration. Color themes. Limited markdown support.

What I never want: link expander: seriously, I don't like it - it takes up space for no value. WYSIWYG editor: I don't think rich text beyond simple markdown is useful.

Hipchat was ok. Slack is ok. I think Slack is a bit better as Hipchat had regular outages.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#25

Post by elwesties » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

I suspect much of the hate for slack is from two types of people. Those who are too young to know the tyranny of email and those who used to ignore their email. As to why it’s so popular, it was the first good business chat solution that went mainstream. And I still haven’t seen another that matches it’s quality

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#26

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

free652 wrote: post #15

ruffrey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Teams really is horrendous. I've used a lot of chat apps over decades. Teams might be the first one that manages to be _confusing_ - a feat I'd never seen in a chat app - because of the way it rearranges new threads, yet hides the recent part of the thread. Plus various other half-implemented features. The wiki and sharepoint/file integration doesn't work very well. There's no wiki search. It's super easy t…

Teams is ok, it's just too much functionality. I have problem finding the correct chat room for the voice call right away, I always have to double check if I am in the correct chat.

My problem with Teams really boils down to the absolutely terrible desktop user interface. It's fiddly, hard to work with, and hard to figure out how to do a lot of things. You can't make the window smaller than a certain (way too large) size, and you can't have more than one window. It's just painful, intrusive, and unpleasant.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#27

Post by someonehere » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

I like the shared workspaces feature.

If your company works with customers directly (a project for example or sales support), it’s easy to create a new channel, create a share link, and send it to an admin on the other side. Now you’ve connected two Slack instances of invited users to a channel. Cuts down on email threads and phone calls. Life saver for where I work.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#28

Post by sethammons » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #19

ralusek wrote: post #17

Because it's good enough, has nice integrations, and is better than email. Convincing non-technical parts of my team to use a chat application is impossible if it can't go on their phones and is basically one single step to get going. Slack fits that criteria. That being said, their notification logic. I remember seeing this insane flowchart demonstrating how complicated slack's logic was when determining whether to…

> I wonder why it never occurred to them that one of the primary considerations should be that if you've sent me over 3 notifications in the past 5 minutes, and I haven't checked, please fucking stop. Because sometimes reading the notification is enough to get the information I need, and I want to keep watching the notifications, but I don't need to respond to any of them.

This is an increasing problem with email too. If you don't open the email, you did not engage, so you can get removed from lists or, much worse, gmail will think something is spam. But gmail shows me most of the email in the UI next to the subject, so I don't need to open it. :sigh:

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#29

Post by hullsean » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

Slack is a huge time waster. It is a constant distraction. As as it becomes standardized it’s assumed you will be on it all the tome. Through the workday and even after. The only time can get work done without distractions is after hours.

With slack the world becomes one big long meeting. Lol

Also as a consultant it is a problem. With email I have paper trails of conversations. But with slack when engagement is ending I lose all that discussion & history. It forces me to double up my note taking (more lost time) and try to hack a backup of some of that stuff as an engagement ends.

Yes I get the advantages but those have long since been buried by all it’s problems

Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?

#30

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

elwesties wrote: post #25

I suspect much of the hate for slack is from two types of people. Those who are too young to know the tyranny of email and those who used to ignore their email. As to why it’s so popular, it was the first good business chat solution that went mainstream. And I still haven’t seen another that matches it’s quality

Why is email more of a tyranny than Slack (or any chat app)? I'd say it's less of a tyranny, because there's less of an expectation of real-time response.