Not everybody wants to pay to put their potentially sensitive data onto somebody else's systems, where they can't control the security of that data.
Their reason that they couldn't search through data if it were encrypted is not true. They are using AWS, and can simply use EBS encrypted volumes (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSEncryp...). Should be an easy flag to turn on.
Both Slack and Amazon can steal all the data without being detected, regardless of whether the servers are encrypting it or not, since if the server can decrypt it, so can Amazon (just scan VM memory for the key from the hypervisor).
Their ToS is also as abusive as it can possibly be, trying to take away your right to sue them in favor of arbitration (!), allowing them to terminate your service at any time, send your data to anyone unencrypted, disclaiming all liabilities and warranties, disallowing any content that is "objectionable", etc.
1. they don't want to depend on a third party's existence. If Slack Inc. goes under or gets sold to eBay, the team won't have Slack anymore, and
2. they want privacy. They don't want conversations being watched or sold, especially to competitors.
I'm pretty sure that's all it is. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though please.
If it's an open source project then shouldn't everything be out in the open anyways? If that's not the case then it implies it's a private project in which case there should be a budget...
Maybe Im wrong though?
"very affordable" is up to each person to define. One of those premium features is a history with more than 10,000 messages.
I frequently interact with at least 25 people just to do my job. The cheapest paid plan is $6.67 per user per month. That works out to $2000 a year. And that's only for the people I work with on a regular basis. Sure, I could afford that, but it's certainly not trivial. Email looks like a good alternative at that price.
That's an trivial amount to pay for effective communications in my book.
Frequently, not ten messages in total.
Email works fine for non important sporadic communication.
If slack didn't "re-invent" IRC, it wouldn't exist.
Also, not everyone is comfortable having data exist on a 3rd party system, that they have no audit access to. This is the fundamental difference between "founders" and people who know how systems work.