The Problem with Slack at Scale • Hacker News Board

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#21

Post by hericium » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #5

cyberpunk wrote: post #2

I mean, good luck… Getting into enterprise IM in 2022 is complete idiocy, but… Good luck. We already have the solution, it’s zulip, yet no one uses it or cares. > Slack is based on IRC Not true any more, maybe in ancient history. > It was built for synchronous communication. Also wrong.

Totally agree with this, not to mention that chat apps are some of the most boring, uninteresting, and braindead "problems" to solve and they have been basically completely "solved" over and over again since bulletin boards.

It's different with Google products. Every new iteration of Hangouts/Chat (or whatever it's called this week) is a bit more "unsolved" than what they're killing to introduce it.

It's less boring when your tools are getting shittier over time.

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#22

Post by jimkleiber » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:48 AM UTC

ngrilly wrote: post #15

I think Zulip has the potential to become a dominant solution in this space if they find way to make the UI as appealing as Slack. Zulip offers a new approach on how to structure discussions by threads while still being a chat application with a “linear” flow.

Yes I want to use Zulip but very often feel disoriented when opening up, borderline dizzy. I'm not sure why, what about the UI causes that for me.

Are there any specific UI recommendations you'd give?

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#23

Post by mikebenfield » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:52 AM UTC

citizenpaul wrote: post #16

>I spent nearly 4 years working on Workplace from Meta, so I’m familiar with building in this space. Some VC guy said this is one of the biggest red flags he looks for in a startup. It almost always leads to failure. I dont remember the exact reasons but something like it means the startup doesnt understand fundamental market segment issues and grit required to overcome them.

Sorry, could you clarify? What specifically is the red flag?

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#24

Post by veb » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:53 AM UTC

synicalx wrote: post #6

One thing I think Teams does well in this space, and where I feel Slack falls short, is the organisation of channels. With Teams you can put people in... well teams, and each team has channels and other data associated with it. This hierarchy makes it easy for people to keep a multitude of channels and data organised without actually having to do it themselves. Another thing I have to (begrudgingly) concede to Teams…

Teams also has the BEST accessibility (at least for live captioning).

I have not used Google Meet or anything, but I'm constantly surprised by the level of sophistication from Teams live captioning and transcripts. You can be watching it "type" in real time. It'll write the wrong word, but several seconds later (as the person has added more context) you see the word, or even sentence completely change to be more on point! It's wonderful.

I hope they continue to improve that. '

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#25

Post by chupchap » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

When buying a new software larger companies need to think about

1. Costing

2. Who will manage it and how integrated is it with everything that exists

3. How much manual effort and time is needed to set it up and maintain it?

4. Who will provide long-term support? Will the company be around in five years for sure?

5. Who else is using it?

6. Does it work on all platforms?

Quality is not a quantified criteria and it is because of these questions raised that a lot of bigger enterprises end of with Teams.

From what I have seen, the decision to use Slack is made bottom-up, which is not how most orgs work.

Lastly, most companies in the world are not massive to have scaling issues. Even in those that are massive, most of the teams work in silos.

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#26

Post by JacobAldridge » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:57 AM UTC

citizenpaul wrote: post #16

>I spent nearly 4 years working on Workplace from Meta, so I’m familiar with building in this space. Some VC guy said this is one of the biggest red flags he looks for in a startup. It almost always leads to failure. I dont remember the exact reasons but something like it means the startup doesnt understand fundamental market segment issues and grit required to overcome them.

I have a similar 'rule' (advising to small businesses) - as a company scales from 1 to 12 to 35 to 120 to 1000 people [1], they move through different phases.

So I see a lot of my clients in the 12-35 person 'Process' phase being excited when they hire someone from a 120+ person company, because of all the expertise they can bring. But that 'Strategy' phase expertise, often when they have a full team and budget to execute their ideas, rarely translates to a smaller business where they also have to roll up their sleeves and GSD.

Sitting in a team building stuff for Meta is definitely a whole other ballpark to convincing Dave's Accounting LLC to give your Slack-competitor a chance.

[1] https://jacobaldridge.com/business/the-growth-transitions-th...

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#27

Post by peterbonney » Tue, May 10, 2022, 6:12 AM UTC

It’s wild that Google, despite being the leader in startup email/business software and literally giving their Slack competitor to everyone for free as part of their Google Business subscription, STILL has such low mindshare in this space that it didn’t even merit a mention in the blog post.

(Full disclosure: my company used Google Chat, and I find the integration ecosystem so pitiful that I’m constantly thinking about paying up for Slack. I don’t know how Google is screwing this market up so badly.)

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#28

Post by pjmlp » Tue, May 10, 2022, 6:16 AM UTC

FullyFunctional wrote: post #20

We adopted Slack and I hate it but use daily. What I find so frustrating with Slack is that it's 1. Super terrible at threading. Threads are clearly discouraged and don't nest. This appears to be by design, but even Usenet handled threading better. 2. Slack is an information wastebasket - at least in my experience it's really hard to find information once there's a significant traffic in a deployment. 3. Too Much Not…

I used to hate Slack, then I got involved with some projects that require Teams,....

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#29

Post by mattwad » Tue, May 10, 2022, 6:18 AM UTC

FullyFunctional wrote: post #20

We adopted Slack and I hate it but use daily. What I find so frustrating with Slack is that it's 1. Super terrible at threading. Threads are clearly discouraged and don't nest. This appears to be by design, but even Usenet handled threading better. 2. Slack is an information wastebasket - at least in my experience it's really hard to find information once there's a significant traffic in a deployment. 3. Too Much Not…

We moved to Discord and I really miss the threads in Slack. (for example threads can last one week max). They definitely could be a lot worse.

Re: The Problem with Slack at Scale

#30

Post by molsongolden » Tue, May 10, 2022, 6:24 AM UTC

ngrilly wrote: post #15

I think Zulip has the potential to become a dominant solution in this space if they find way to make the UI as appealing as Slack. Zulip offers a new approach on how to structure discussions by threads while still being a chat application with a “linear” flow.

I switched companies which meant moving from Zulip to Slack. I don’t understand why people like Slack or what they like about the UI.

Threading is terrible, async catchup is difficult, gif links don’t convert cleanly, group DMs are limited to 8 users then Slack suggests creating a new channel…?!