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Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

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Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#21

Post by stereolambda »

I think the key deciding factor isn't even technical, but: if you want to enter Slack (or Zoom, or similar), it is streamlined, easy and clear what you need to do. Compare it to IRC, where you have to find a client, make the choice, and make many other small decisions. It's also about immediate benefit: the way many people try to start with IRC involves searching for rooms and trying to somehow fit in and enter the conversation, while the local culture may not be welcoming or easy to get into.

That said, I've succeeded in gradually getting some of my friends onto Riot/Matrix. To be clear, I did it without much technical/ideological evangelizing or being obtuse, just on the basis of them wanting to talk to me and in our social group. But Riot is also at least nice-looking, multiplatform, has modern features etc. Things that are still annoying:

1. Dealing with Riot/Matrix system/client confusion. Most people don't care about such distinctions, I should probably just focus on talking about Riot. (I understand that developers may choose to do different in their communication)

2. Entering into 1/1 conversations. I still don't know/remember how to reliably do it with a new person, always did it by trial and error by trying to invite in ways X and Y etc. It probably requires finding the opt-in into email invitations in the configuration by each participant. I understand these are some anti-stalking measures, but God is it annoying.

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#22

Post by robjan »

josteink wrote: post #8
dijit wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. (although, that's not technically true since irccloud does all the things you just mentioned)

> nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. Slack is a closed-source for-profit SaaS, ruled by a single benevolent company. IRC is an open protocol-specification with a multitude of clients, servers and networks. You couldn’t find better apples and oranges for comparison if you tried.

Yes, and there was plenty of opportunity for someone to develop a client that scratches all of those itches. But they didn't.

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#23

Post by josteink »

dijit wrote: post #14
josteink wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. Slack is a closed-source for-profit SaaS, ruled by a single benevolent company. IRC is an open protocol-specification with a multitude of clients, servers and networks. You couldn’t find better apples and oranges for comparison if you tried.

I agree completely. But we're talking about reasons people ended up choosing slack over something like IRC (or, really, any open protocol instant messaging specification). The grand-parent comment raises good points, people want these things, being connected and reachable while not being connected to the server with any client and having a context later on. These are problems that can be solved but nobody has put eff…

> nobody has put effort into making a sexy product

Again we are comparing a product to a protocol.

I’m just pointing out that this is not a reasonable comparison.

There were multiple web-enabled IRC bouncers (closed products) which would be easy to use for anyone, including non-techsavy people.

But evidently the majority of IRC-users were fine without that and preferred the traditional client-server-protocol realm.

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#24

Post by [deleted] »

axegon_ wrote: post #18

I still kind of struggle to understand why Slack is so popular within the corporate world. It is a good choice when you have some public initiative and let people swarm in, yes. But when it comes to private entities(I'm talking about large corporations), I really don't get it. I've been using MatterMost for years and while it had a rough start, at this point I'd take it over Slack any day of the week. Functionality i…

[deleted]

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#26

Post by rakoo »

dijit wrote: post #5
alexandernst wrote: post #2

Because whenever somebody asked for: * 24/7 presence, the reply was "you can do that with a bouncer" * backlog, the reply was "you can do that with a bouncer" * full text search, the reply was "that's up to the client implementation" * file sharing, the reply was "it's already possible with XDCC" and so on and so forth. Basically, it's not that Slack is great, it's because IRC as a whole just refused to adapt to what…

More like nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. (although, that's not technically true since irccloud does all the things you just mentioned)

> (although, that's not technically true since irccloud does all the things you just mentioned)

Yes but then you're not using IRC, you're using IRCCloud. Its features are independent from the backend that is used; they could switch to Matrix or XMPP or a proprietary protocol for that matter, and the features would still be there. You can't expect the one you talk to to have IRCCloud and tell them "just search in the conversation history, it's there" because the protocol doesn't allow it.

The GP's answer is correct, Slack does a lot of useful things by default. That's why people like installing Ubuntu or even Debian but don't want to take time to setup an Archlinux or a Gentoo anymore: it's fun, but if I just want to do something other than tuning my install I'm not going to consider those distributions.

Now, the question is, does that mean that LFS or any bare distribution "lost" to, say, Fedora ? No, because they are meant for different needs. I'd say it's the same for IRC: it's best suited for people who are not interested in the full history and want to talk to people in a synchronous manner, people for whom text is a more than good enough solution and aren't necessarily interested in binary exchanges, people who like pseudonymity, etc

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#28

Post by ryukafalz »

stereolambda wrote: post #21

I think the key deciding factor isn't even technical, but: if you want to enter Slack (or Zoom, or similar), it is streamlined, easy and clear what you need to do. Compare it to IRC, where you have to find a client, make the choice, and make many other small decisions. It's also about immediate benefit: the way many people try to start with IRC involves searching for rooms and trying to somehow fit in and enter the c…

> Dealing with Riot/Matrix system/client confusion. Most people don't care about such distinctions, I should probably just focus on talking about Riot.

The thing I haven’t figured out is... why would people find this hard to understand for chat, but not for email? Everyone uses email, and everyone knows they can send an email to whatever email address they want no matter who their provider is.

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#29

Post by dijit »

rakoo wrote: post #26
dijit wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like nobody bothered to make a decent product that could do all the nice things slack is doing. (although, that's not technically true since irccloud does all the things you just mentioned)

> (although, that's not technically true since irccloud does all the things you just mentioned) Yes but then you're not using IRC, you're using IRCCloud. Its features are independent from the backend that is used; they could switch to Matrix or XMPP or a proprietary protocol for that matter, and the features would still be there. You can't expect the one you talk to to have IRCCloud and tell them "just search in the…

Weird distinction.

There’s no difference from this over using weechat relay.

Re: Why did Slack win out over IRC? (2018)

#30

Post by truckerbill »

ryukafalz wrote: post #28
stereolambda wrote: post #21

I think the key deciding factor isn't even technical, but: if you want to enter Slack (or Zoom, or similar), it is streamlined, easy and clear what you need to do. Compare it to IRC, where you have to find a client, make the choice, and make many other small decisions. It's also about immediate benefit: the way many people try to start with IRC involves searching for rooms and trying to somehow fit in and enter the c…

> Dealing with Riot/Matrix system/client confusion. Most people don't care about such distinctions, I should probably just focus on talking about Riot. The thing I haven’t figured out is... why would people find this hard to understand for chat, but not for email? Everyone uses email, and everyone knows they can send an email to whatever email address they want no matter who their provider is.

Most people are chained to a hotmail or gmail and don’t really understand the underlying architecture in my experience.
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