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1597 points seapunk | 11 comments | | HN request time: 2.23s | source | bottom
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geoffeg ◴[] No.22703171[source]
> As quarantined millions gather virtually on conferencing platforms, the best of those, Zoom, is doing very well.

Why would Zoom care about their privacy issues if they're doing so well off? Seems like that's a good amount of positive reinforcement that their current approach is the right one to them. Maybe they'll lose a few thousand customers because of it, but given what I'm sure was a huge increase in the past few weeks, why would it be something they're concerned about?

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1. bradly ◴[] No.22703721[source]
The reason Zoom is doing so well is part of its vulnerability. There is very little vendor lock-in with virtual conferencing platforms. If something new/better comes out next month, there isn't much a company will give up by switching vendors. There is little to no infrastructure to setup/maintain. This is the same reason Slack's popularity has skyrocketed. Because of the lack of history and transient nature of the content shared in them, these areas are quick to gain popularity, but also quick to be replaced when a better product emerges.
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2. kardos ◴[] No.22703837[source]
> This is the same reason Slack's popularity has skyrocketed. Because of the lack of history <snip>

Slack's business model [1] is storing all history and charging for access for it. Nothing transient about that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#Business_mode...

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3. tinalumfoil ◴[] No.22704009[source]
Is it common to want to keep all that history? My understanding was it's best practice to delete chats after a certain period to limit the surface area of any potential legal discovery.
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4. bradly ◴[] No.22704027[source]
You are correct that there is history, but my point is that I don't believe the existence of long lived chat history (storing all messages longer than 3-6 months) will be a blocker for a company to switch to a better chat platform. Chat should not be looked at as a durable store of critical, long term information. Slack is trying to create a vendor lock-in that doesn't exist.
5. daxelrod ◴[] No.22704179{3}[source]
Ah, but Slack doesn't delete the history either unless you pay them: https://slack.com/help/articles/203457187-Customize-message-...

On the free tier it's still there, on their servers.

6. selectodude ◴[] No.22704187{3}[source]
For a lot of industries, deleting internal communication is illegal. For any publicly traded company in the US, all internal communication needs to be archived for five years.
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7. quanticle ◴[] No.22705397{4}[source]
And it's equally emphasized, at many of those organizations, that all communication older than 5 years is deleted. Nobody wants to be burned by an ill-considered statement made in a decade-old IM conversation.
8. quickthrower2 ◴[] No.22706636[source]
We switched from Zoom to Slack as soon as we realised we could use Slack and it’s much easier. But there is a 15 person limit so we’ll switch out for something else in a bigger meeting. It’s too easy to switch.
9. rsanek ◴[] No.22707845{4}[source]
Do you have a source for this? I couldn't find anything regarding the 5 year time frame. I did find [0] which references a few different retention periods, especially at 7 years.

[0] https://www.intradyn.com/email-retention-laws/

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10. bradly ◴[] No.22708243{5}[source]
It's part of SOX. It actually requires the data be unencrypted, immutable, and available offline. Most corporations (large and small) do not follow this for email, messaging, wikis and many other services.
11. closeparen ◴[] No.22708662[source]
We have a few thousand conference rooms around the world wired from Zoom. Much of it is probably commodity hardware that could be reconfigured for another platform, but it would still be a massive undertaking.