Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

Post by kuschku » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #602

kuschku wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for message retention and search, IRC already has all that, and even that is possible with bouncers. Mobile applications with notifications, conversation threads with +draft/reply (IRCv3 draft), multimedia attachments (IRCv3 idea), authentication with SASL and standardized account management (IRCv3 draft), etc. Look at what IRCCloud provides, and what IRCv3 is doing.

> Except for ##2 killer features##, IRC already has all that, and even that is possible ##if you implement it yourself##. That's what normal people see when they read your message.

    docker run \
  -v /path/to/folder/where/you/want/to/store/the/config:/config \
  k8r.eu/justjanne/quassel-docker:v0.13.1

Post by 0xffff2 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #573

zbentley wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...OK, so you chose to communicate on it in order to communicate with "others", presumably due to an employer wanting you all to use Slack. In that situation, your communications are often legally not your own property (though it is arguable, at least in the US). If you're using it personally, the limits on message counts are made quite clear. Exceeding them makes export difficult or impossible without paying. So don…

No, I'm not referring to employment communications or personal communications. There are other categories where I've had no choice but to use the same communication channels others were using despite the content of my communications being emphatically mine. Are you just trying to be infuriating?

Post by chrshawkes » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

raydev wrote: post #651

hackerpacker wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by jhallenworld » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #674

mehrdadn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "well deserved". They did it by holding people's data hostage. It's one thing to make your messages unsearchable or otherwise available in the UI until your pay, but holding your data completely hostage until you pay up isn't exactly a noble way to go about things. Even Facebook isn't this obnoxious about getting you a copy of your message history.

Just double checked this and exported the history from my free plan -- in Slack I can only see messages back to November 2018, but the export includes all messages back to our beginning in 2016. As others have said, this 'Standard Export' doesn't include direct messages and private channels, so there's still some amount of 'hostage taking'

Post by buryat » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

terminalhealth wrote: post #662

dopeboy wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.