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Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

blog.zulip.com

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Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#21

Post by JadoJodo »

It's interesting (and sad) how the forums of yesteryear have essentially gone away entirely, with no good solutions popping up to replace them. I know they were/are incredibly prone to security issues, but they were good at one thing and one thing only: community.

I recall spending a crazy amount of time refreshing the index on a site called TradeGamesNow (and to a lesser degree CheapAssGamer) waiting for new posts/comments. Now every site on the web either has a Subreddit (too much tertiary noise), Discord (I'm terrified of making a post on the wrong server by accident), or (to a lesser degree) Slack (limited features, as noted in the article).

As to the Slack announcement: I get that guests staying in your house for free eat not-free food. That being said, I have to imagine that Slack could offer a non-real-time updating experience (no polling, disable calls/video/file hosting) to cut down on costs (my assumption is that the active nature of the service is the biggest expense) and make it feasible for a free or $5/mo for X users & unlimited guests.

(I'm aware that Discourse was Supposed To Be The Chosen One, but at $100/mo and no self-hosting option (that I can see), I don't think it's even considered much. But I could be wrong.)

Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#22

Post by insightcheck »

aabhay wrote: post #10

Just migrate to Discord?

The main advantage that Slack has, especially for many people in non-technical roles, is the just-professional-enough user interface over the casual look of Discord.

I've been in Discord servers for volunteer work, and while it generally works pretty great, the system feels a lot more casual to users (e.g. with non-human profile pictures). On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft Teams is almost too professional, and has an emotional association of being too corporate/formal for more pleasant use.

Discord is also tougher to create group conversations easily (you need to be Friends first). Though, if message history is really that important, it could be a worthwhile tradeoff.

Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#23

Post by olingern »

If Zulip became an overnight success, five to seven years from now I see them making similar changes. Resources cost money and Slack achieved what it needed to in order to establish itself as the dominant company in the space.

If anything, this will allow for some meaningful competition

Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#26

Post by layoric »

JadoJodo wrote: post #21

It's interesting (and sad) how the forums of yesteryear have essentially gone away entirely, with no good solutions popping up to replace them. I know they were/are incredibly prone to security issues, but they were good at one thing and one thing only: community. I recall spending a crazy amount of time refreshing the index on a site called TradeGamesNow (and to a lesser degree CheapAssGamer) waiting for new posts/c…

There is absolutely a self hosting option with Discourse, and in fact they encourage it. [0] Here is their install guide [1]

[0] https://github.com/discourse/discourse

[1] https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/docs/INSTAL...

Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#27

Post by femiagbabiaka »

ceejayoz wrote: post #7
ethbr0 wrote: post #3

Setting aside that this is from a Slack competitor... > one would be hard-pressed to find any who are excited about it Me. You know all that bitching we collectively do about ad and tracking supported business models obsfuscating the cost of "free" products? The solution is being willing to pay for something you use and like.

Except we still get tracked in the paid stuff.

Exactly right. The whole “pay so they don’t track you” thing is a trope of maybe more than a decade ago. Now you pay to get the basic feature you need and you’ll get your data sold anyways.

Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#28

Post by LunaSea »

withinboredom wrote: post #9
ethbr0 wrote: post #3

Setting aside that this is from a Slack competitor... > one would be hard-pressed to find any who are excited about it Me. You know all that bitching we collectively do about ad and tracking supported business models obsfuscating the cost of "free" products? The solution is being willing to pay for something you use and like.

I’d be willing to pay, but not that much for my brother and I to chat every now and then. Their pricing is geared towards enterprises with big budgets, not family and friends, nor even interest groups. It’s pretty much Discord everywhere now, and it’s just a matter of time until Discord eats the enterprise market too…

Discord just isn't a good fit for B2B

Re: Slack’s free plan change is causing an exodus

#29

Post by userbinator »

IRC has always been free and you can search as much as you've logged...

One thing that a lot of people seem to have difficulty understanding is just how little space text takes up; someone typing at 120wpm continuously for 28h has only generated a little over 1MB of text. No doubt Slack is taking advantage of that lack of understanding to make people think the costs are greater.

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