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Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

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

#661

Post by kitd »

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

And yet open-source has exploded.

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

#662

Post by terminalhealth »

dopeboy wrote: post #648
ashelmire wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a great ad for Slack, but I don't think it's true. I've never had any issues with any other chat app. Many people still use Facebook chat and IRC and the functionality is basically identical between each of the new chat apps (well, except you can do way more with IRC).

I want to respectfully challenge this - many people do still use those tools and still will. But the user experience in Slack is objectively better, especially with large rooms with frequent content (as the OP mentions). I lived in IRC in the late 90s and early 2000s. IRC is fantastic and open and federated. But if I want to get things done with a team, I'll pick Slack everytime.

Still, it is not worth $16B. It's straight forward existing ideas crowbarred into a modern webapp that really any 10-headed team of highly talented web programmers could come up with and implement within a month or so. So it is maybe worth 10 * $100 000 / 12 = $83 333, so it is overvalued by a factor of 192 000. Highly indicative of an economic bubble.

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

#663

Post by fnord123 »

buboard wrote: post #548
ethbro wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email protocols pre-date commercial access to the internet. So incentives were very different when it was created.

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.

>it's all about the UI being dumb-proof

Make something idiot-proof and the world will make a better idiot. And it looks like I'm the bigger idiot here because I don't understand the interface at all.

I'm in two servers for two open source projects but my ID seems to be different for the two servers and not federated for some reason. Or is it? I don't really know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#664

Post by shereadsthenews »

sciurus wrote: post #343
shereadsthenews wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site doesn’t use any resources when I close its tab.

The desktop app doesn't use any resources when you close it either. What's your point?

That’s only true if you configure it in a particular way. By default it stays running when closed so it can notify you and update its badge.

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

#665

Post by shereadsthenews »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #475
beatgammit wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, you can just put Slack into it's own window if you're going to use multiple tabs for it. Personally, I just pin it next to my email and it works fine. I'm not a fan of how much RAM or CPU it uses. I tried the desktop app hoping it would be better, but it seems like it's perhaps worse (I use Firefox, so

Not great for web developers. We have enough tabs open and if every window is a chrome icon it’s a pain to find stuff. I’ve got karma tests running, selenium tests, incognito windows testing security etc etc.

If the other poster has the tan pinned then it is probably very easy to find. Perhaps even command-2 if it’s pinned in the second tab from the left.

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

#666

Post by djsumdog »

notjustanymike wrote: post #611
fasteo wrote: post #493

>>> More than 88,000 Paid Customers, including more than 65 companies in the Fortune 100; and >>> We had 575 Paid Customers >$100,000 of ARR as of January 31, 2019, which accounted for approximately 40% of our revenue in fiscal year 2019. If my math is right, 40% of their revenue is concentrated in I also saw that this is a direct listing and not an IPO. Again, I can only see this as a risk, basically because no unde…

Most of the places I worked had 2 or 3 whales. 55 whales is actually pretty good.

I've noticed this too. I worked for companies that had one big customer; possibly branching out with two or three others. But if that one big customer ever went away, the company would probably collapse. They really should have just been bought and made a subsidiarity:

https://penguindreams.org/blog/tech-culture-shock-from-ameri...

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

#667

Post by kuschku »

ubermonkey wrote: post #601
kuschku wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's exactly what I'm doing all the time. I can search my logs easily https://i.imgur.com/nTpoYs0.png (soon with even better integration, the prototype is a separate web app), and I can just open the web client or app on any device on this planet and instantly have all my logs and channels, and just chat: https://i.k8r.eu/54BPMQ.png Of course, I use self-hosted quassel and quasseldroid. Many other projects su…

"The one single real advantage of Slack is marketing." Respectfully, NO. Providing a very useful turnkey set of features out of the box that are technically possible but fiddly and hard to use in IRC is in and of itself a huge advantage. This is why they're successful. This is why people use it. This is why people use it who barely know what a command line IS.

If you want that, you can just use IRCCloud, it has all that in a single solution. Just like Slack.

IRCCloud can even connect to Slack workspaces.

The only advantage Slack has over IRCCloud is marketing.

It's relatively ironic that I have to end up praising IRCCloud here, considering I'm contributing to a competing IRC client.

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

#668

Post by 0xEFF »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #646
ebiester wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 50 largest customers are unlikely to move away within the next two years, and neither are most businesses. I can see someone worry about growth, but they're not going away in 2 years.

Two years ago, those 50 customers weren't using Slack at all. It will be just as easy for them to leave.

Why would they?

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

#669

Post by 0xffff2 »

granshaw wrote: post #650
jdworrells wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Try to get the average office worker to use IRC today and see how far that gets you. It really behooves Engineers to put themselves in the shoes of actual users once in a while

Nobody is saying IRC is the greatest thing in the world today. It was very effective in its time, and it existed (and continues to exist!) without a profit-driven motive.
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