Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#651

Post by raydev » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

hackerpacker wrote: post #605

granshaw wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no money to be made in creating and building on open protocols. Without money to be made there’s no funding. Without funding there’s no way to create great experiences. Without great experiences nobody will use the thing. Pretty straightforward, really

On the other hand, I don't think anyone accused slack, with multi-megabyte webpages and even worse mobile app, of being a great experience. I think I used it once, and said no more.

The Electron-ness and memory usage of the app on desktop are certainly annoying, but the UX is still far better than any terminal-based or open source GUI for IRC. It was better than HipChat when my company moved to Slack 4 years ago.

Overall Slack is a net UX improvement over everything that came before.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#652

Post by ed312 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

jdworrells wrote: post #644

granshaw wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no money to be made in creating and building on open protocols. Without money to be made there’s no funding. Without funding there’s no way to create great experiences. Without great experiences nobody will use the thing. Pretty straightforward, really

Great experiences are dependent on funding? Going back to IRC, many of us had great experiences on there. USENET was a fountain of great experiences. All text mode. Or do you mean "great experiences" as in the kind of thing depicted in Subaru commercials where they are selling the car as a gateway to beautiful mountaintop sunsets and beach picnics? Great experiences come from true utility and functionality. Not putti…

Great experience for a tech nerd vs great experience for your average desk jockey. Nobody is stopping us from making new protocols, continuing to use IRC, etc. The reality is software is no longer a niche thing - its just another part of mainstream business. There are still "power user" versions of formerly-niche domains.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#653

Post by mlrtime » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #488

Happy for the people that built it, with the idea of improving what the chat was. Sad for the internet, because we were better in the 1980s with an open standard like IRC, and gradually the internet community lost the ability to adapt their old open protocols for the future.

Seems like there are 16 billion reasons NOT to choose IRC. From Slack's perspective (and you could argue most of it's users) this was a good choice.

FWIW, I've been using IRC for over 20 years.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#654

Post by spookybones » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

Is anyone here buying shares?

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#655

Post by wUabkSG6L5Bfa5 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

Sahhaese wrote: post #529

antirez wrote: post #488

Happy for the people that built it, with the idea of improving what the chat was. Sad for the internet, because we were better in the 1980s with an open standard like IRC, and gradually the internet community lost the ability to adapt their old open protocols for the future.

The death of the protocol. People no longer release protocols, they release products. The open net, the open web has truly died. I wonder sometimes what we're missing because the conditions that let the web grow out of the internet have disappeared. What next leap are we missing?

Man, it's crazy how much was riding on Slack staying private.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#656

Post by fisherjeff » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

jsherwani wrote: post #289

fisherjeff wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now they’re dropping its functionality from Slack! Would LOVE for someone to buy Screenhero back from Slack and bring it back to life. Truly a shame as it is.

I’m working on it! :)

Okay, you’ve officially made my day.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#657

Post by chrislloyd » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

granshaw wrote: post #568

Sahhaese wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death of the protocol. People no longer release protocols, they release products. The open net, the open web has truly died. I wonder sometimes what we're missing because the conditions that let the web grow out of the internet have disappeared. What next leap are we missing?

There’s no money to be made in creating and building on open protocols. Without money to be made there’s no funding. Without funding there’s no way to create great experiences. Without great experiences nobody will use the thing. Pretty straightforward, really

By that reasoning (which I mostly agree with) making it cheaper to build great experiences is a good thing to do.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#658

Post by austenallred » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #488

Happy for the people that built it, with the idea of improving what the chat was. Sad for the internet, because we were better in the 1980s with an open standard like IRC, and gradually the internet community lost the ability to adapt their old open protocols for the future.

We still have IRC for those that choose to use it

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#659

Post by mcv » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

tallanvor wrote: post #607

mcv wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single one of my clients uses Jira, and nobody I've ever met had a problem with it. It works, it's flexible, it's pretty easy to use. It's the industry standard, and for good reason, as far as I can tell.

I've never heard anyone call Jira the industry standard. There's way too much fragmentation in that market for anyone to be able to make that claim. Jira can work well or it can work very poorly. It really depends on what you're trying to do with it and what resources you're willing to pour into it. That's why some people love it while others hate it.

It looks like the industry standard from where I'm sitting. Of all the companies I've worked for in the past 15 years, both as employee and as freelancer, I think only 2 didn't use Jira. 3 if I count my private projects (I used Pivotal).

In all that time, the only thing I've really heard people complain about, was when it was slow or down.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#660

Post by buboard » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #586

buboard wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so does IRC. I believe even if it adopted IRC as a protocol, slack would still be successful, it's all about the UI being dumb-proof, friendly and capable and seemingly in-vogue. Discord, even more.

If Slack adopted the IRC protocol, it would be subject to the same issue Microsoft had with the early web -- either implementing proprietary extensions to the spec to enable features, kludging in new features by abusing existing functionality, or waiting for spec consensus before expanding. And furthermore, it'd be reimplemented almost instantly by Facebook / Apple / Microsoft / Google. So I can see why they decided…

> it'd be reimplemented almost instantly by Facebook

wait, how? It's not like there was/is a lot of ppl on IRC, just a handful, and it doesnt fit into their product (talking with strangers)