Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 809 posts

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

#761

Post by oblio »

kuschku wrote: post #724
oblio wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, irccloud.com must be doing something wrong if they're using a pre-existing protocol, have solved its problems and yet Slack is the company worth billions.

That’s the part where VC money comes in. 99% of the VC funded companies worth billions weren’t the first, or the best — they just managed to get VC money and out-spent everyone else on advertising, or used the money to give away their product until they were the largest. Uber is still making losses in almost all markets it’s active in. Slack is making a 380'000 $ loss per day. Amazon hasn’t made a profit a single tim…

Amazon has made a tiny profit for several years before AWS, when it started having larger ones.

But it was never too much in the red. It shouldn't be placed together with Uber.

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

#762

Post by sethammons »

duderific wrote: post #738
konspence wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack is one of the most bloated apps on my computer, and my smartphone. On both, it takes seconds to boot, and that's just to load the local cache. Syncing with the main server takes a few more seconds. It has some good UI patterns. But overall, it's heavy and slow. It takes longer to load than the previous chat clients I used.

It is a large and complex piece of software that enables great productivity gains if used correctly. I think a few second startup time is a small price to pay for that.

I think the criticism is that it is hard to understand _why_ it is a large and complex piece of software. It seems like it should be small and relatively simple and load fast.

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

#763

Post by ethbro »

buboard wrote: post #660
ethbro wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Clearly defined spec + order of magnitude funding difference + new market = ideal product cloning opportunity

As has been mentioned here, Facebook is running out of strangers to connect: future growth will depend on adding new types of users.

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

#764

Post by cududa »

marcrosoft wrote: post #186
cududa wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s been the future for a decade, and that future isn’t here ... is it really the future of applications?

Yup, you used a web app to post your comment. Apple dropped Flash for native web HTML5. Is the future really to develop an app that can only run in 4 places (Windows, mac, ios, and android) dominated by three major companies?

Yes

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

#765

Post by saagarjha »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #567
saagarjha wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack is in no way a "small startup".

They were when they started out and not getting distracted by a multi platform strategy is what allowed them to stop being one.

They’ve had more than a couple of years with plenty of resources to fix their apps.

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

#766

Post by OkiiEli »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #176

I hear people mention Slack once in a while on various forums but I have no clue what it is. I do not know anyone who uses it so it's not something I, or anyone I know, feels a need for--otherwise we would be searching it out. And therein lies a problem. $16B for something few people need or want? I guess I have to look up Slack and see what it is. EDIT: So I looked it up and it looks like something useful for a lot…

Your comfortable paying $5/no for it? I have a clone that's worth 0 because ideas are useless unless well executed. Slack team executed it very well and that's why it's worth $16B(Rwanda annual budget)

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

#767

Post by skinnymuch »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #751
bborud wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not wrong :-). In fact, your second line is completely correct. However, Slack has lowered the standards for desktop software by being a really terrible piece of software. Which means that the professional in me wants to see a decent client before I'm happy. What's more worrying is that we are rapidly moving away from an Internet based on open standards and into walled gardens.

Check volt if you want a slack client: https://volt-app.com/ Other electron based apps like Discord perform better so I'm not sure why Slack is so crappy.

Have there been lots of updates? A few months ago it felt very alpha.

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

#768

Post by skinnymuch »

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?

Everything is personal or employer/business. Why are you assuming such malice from the person you responded to?

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

#769

Post by skinnymuch »

mehrdadn wrote: post #202
bjoernw wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Corporate Export On the Plus plan, Workspace Owners can apply to access a self-service tool called Corporate Export. This type of export includes content from public and private channels and direct messages. If Corporate Export is enabled for your workspace, Standard Export will not be available." https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201658943-Export-yo...

Yes, which means they hold your data hostage until you pay, exactly like I said.

How is it hostage if you voluntarily used the software for free? They’re spending money accommodating your free usage.

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

#770

Post by skinnymuch »

triska wrote: post #512
welly wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is IRC in any way faster or more accessible than Slack for quick chats? Does IRC fit a purpose? If so, what? And how does it do anything better than Slack? Slack is certainly no email replacement, and nor will I ever use it for such but in my experience and for the purposes I use it for, it is far, far more featured than IRC, unless you're using some uber IRC client that I'm unaware of. I'm genuinely trying to un…

Personally, I cannot make a comparison between Slack and IRC because I have never tried the former. From the discussion, it is clear that Slack has many features and attractions that are not available or harder to obtain with IRC. However, for me personally, a major attraction of IRC is that I can easily use it from within Emacs, and automatically have the same Emacs key bindings available that I also use for navigat…

To each their own. I’d hate chat and other things intermingled.
Post reply on HN