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    Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year

    (skyfall.dev)
    1806 points JustSkyfall | 25 comments | 18 Sep 25 01:37 UTC | HN request time: 1.254s | source | bottom
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    fn-mote ◴[18 Sep 25 02:24 UTC] No.45284378[source]▶
    I was ready to be unsympathetic - too bad for the company - but then I read TFA and it's a rug pull on a nonprofit teaching coding to kids....

    https://hackclub.com/

    (They do help clubs sell things, taking "7% of income", so they do have a revenue stream, but the money that Slack wants would pay a veritable army of student interns.)

    replies(11): >>45284609 #>>45284762 #>>45285589 #>>45285698 #>>45285844 #>>45286417 #>>45286495 #>>45286737 #>>45286964 #>>45287386 #>>45287524 #
    chrisasquith ◴[18 Sep 25 05:14 UTC] No.45285698[source]▶
    Hi! Ty! And Hack club is totally free to teens and we provide travel stipends, hardware, electronics and more. (We don’t charge 7 percent to clubs to sell things :)) hack club run a fiscal sponsorship and adult-orgs using it pay us 7percent- which we use to make more things free to teens. - hack club cofounder here
    replies(2): >>45286044 #>>45286077 #
    1. ugh123 ◴[18 Sep 25 06:11 UTC] No.45286077[source]▶
    Have you thought about moving to Discord? I'm sure it won't be free for your org, but could be friendlier terms.
    replies(9): >>45286104 #>>45286196 #>>45286219 #>>45286236 #>>45286379 #>>45286415 #>>45286420 #>>45286976 #>>45287456 #
    2. sfn42 ◴[18 Sep 25 06:15 UTC] No.45286104[source]▶
    I was going to suggest the same. Why would it not be free? I would expect it to be free. I don't think running a server costs anything.
    replies(1): >>45286191 #
    3. worthless-trash ◴[18 Sep 25 06:26 UTC] No.45286191[source]▶
    Yet.

    Just takes them to hire the right marketing genius and suddenly you'll be subscribing to send more than 5 messages a week.

    replies(2): >>45287548 #>>45288253 #
    4. viccis ◴[18 Sep 25 06:27 UTC] No.45286196[source]▶
    Discord is (rightfully) finally under the scrutiny it is due. I would say that their choice of Mattermost is apt.
    5. N-Krause ◴[18 Sep 25 06:30 UTC] No.45286219[source]▶
    Isn't this basically the same as Slack, just good for _now_?

    I do use discord myself. But as a company I wouln't put all my communication data in the hands of a company that could just do the same as Slack did, in some foreseeable future.

    6. jstummbillig ◴[18 Sep 25 06:34 UTC] No.45286236[source]▶
    How about https://once.com/campfire
    replies(2): >>45287214 #>>45287430 #
    7. self_awareness ◴[18 Sep 25 06:53 UTC] No.45286379[source]▶
    This is hilarious. People suggesting to move to Discord, because Slack walled garden has started to profit from the vendor lock-in they've created.

    This shows that many people still have no idea what's going on. That you shouldn't use Slack OR Discord.

    It's really incredible, although expected.

    replies(2): >>45286389 #>>45286496 #
    8. mleonarde-opv ◴[18 Sep 25 06:55 UTC] No.45286389[source]▶
    is... was it Ellis island?
    9. darkwater ◴[18 Sep 25 06:58 UTC] No.45286415[source]▶
    Sure, so 5 years from now they will be in the exact same situation.
    10. dns_snek ◴[18 Sep 25 06:58 UTC] No.45286420[source]▶
    I would recommend that people stop taking this kind of bait, especially as an organization. Discord is free for now but that's bound to change and you can't have any expectation of privacy there.

    In my eyes they're practically the poster child for an organization who could (and arguably should) be running their own solution on their own servers.

    Perhaps self-hosted Revolt Chat [1] which I've been keeping an eye on but I don't have any first hand experience with it. There are many more solutions in this space though.

    [1] https://revolt.chat/

    replies(1): >>45287392 #
    11. anthk ◴[18 Sep 25 07:08 UTC] No.45286496[source]▶
    Yep. We millenials spent decades talking about free and libre protocols (and software) and kids today love another walled garden against another one... good luck with that.

    Inb4 "IRC sucks"... Jabber/XMPP exists since late 00's (at least ready enough compared to the first versions) and there are pretty fine clients for every OS.

    replies(1): >>45286887 #
    12. gwd ◴[18 Sep 25 08:04 UTC] No.45286887{3}[source]▶
    Listen, I'm an old fart who may have been messing around on IRC when you were just a twinkle in your parents' eyes. IRC does suck along a lot of important metrics. The GPL open-source community-developed project I worked on for 19 years moved from IRC to Matrix several years ago, and the payoff in terms of engagement was obvious immediately.

    I agree that walled gardens are a trap. But you're not going to convince people to move to free solutions without being able to recognize clearly why they walled gardens are so attractive in the first place.

    replies(2): >>45287609 #>>45287786 #
    13. youngtaff ◴[18 Sep 25 08:19 UTC] No.45286976[source]▶
    Discord is pretty horrible when compared to Slack… can’t change the tiny font size for starters
    replies(2): >>45287132 #>>45287344 #
    14. Zekio ◴[18 Sep 25 08:39 UTC] No.45287132[source]▶
    you can literally change the font size to up to 24px and then double it again if that isn't enough using zoom level in discord
    15. wltr ◴[18 Sep 25 08:48 UTC] No.45287214[source]▶
    Or better this: https://github.com/basecamp/once-campfire
    16. esseph ◴[18 Sep 25 09:06 UTC] No.45287344[source]▶
    Of course you can change the font and font size.
    17. omneity ◴[18 Sep 25 09:12 UTC] No.45287392[source]▶
    I explored revolt with a group of friends earlier this year, along several other solutions such as Matrix Element, Telegram and the new TeamSpeak.

    Neither Revolt nor others are unfortunately at the right level of maturity to be adopted seriously. The team is doing a great job, but it’s still extremely basic.

    Discord with all its warts is still the best way to have group calls in a casual setting.

    replies(1): >>45288725 #
    18. linhns ◴[18 Sep 25 09:18 UTC] No.45287430[source]▶
    Second this. I'm fond of just enough principle, and this is exactly that.
    19. linhns ◴[18 Sep 25 09:20 UTC] No.45287456[source]▶
    Going from a greedy corporation to another greedy corporation is not a good idea.
    20. jon-wood ◴[18 Sep 25 09:32 UTC] No.45287548{3}[source]▶
    Even now it costs extra to have file uploads over 50MB, high quality audio, and large video calls. Features that an organisation like this could legitimately need.
    21. anthk ◴[18 Sep 25 09:42 UTC] No.45287609{4}[source]▶
    I'm from 1987, are you sure? And I was talking about Jabber, not IRC.
    replies(1): >>45289597 #
    22. nottorp ◴[18 Sep 25 10:10 UTC] No.45287786{4}[source]▶
    > in terms of engagement

    What's your definition of "engagement" here? Because it makes me think of social networking tactics to keep you ... well ... engaged ... the longest time possible.

    23. keithnz ◴[18 Sep 25 11:21 UTC] No.45288253{3}[source]▶
    we use discord, it's great, we wrote our own bots for the things we need. In terms of making money, it's just discord has a different model for making money, it doesn't want the servers to cost money, it wants as many servers as possible so many people want to use discord. It sells directly to users.
    24. ilidur ◴[18 Sep 25 12:21 UTC] No.45288725{3}[source]▶
    We've deployed mattermost at my company because it meets most requirements that slack did minus the SSO. Surprisingly used by some big government agencies (NASA/USAF)
    25. gwd ◴[18 Sep 25 13:42 UTC] No.45289597{5}[source]▶
    > And I was talking about Jabber, not IRC.

    Right, I misunderstood your last line. I initially took you to mean, "We've had IRC since forever and Jabber since the early 00's..." Reading it again, I now understand you to mean, "Before you say 'IRC sucks', which I agree with, better protocols like Jabber have been around since the early 00's."