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Comment by sinatra | Hacker News Reader

We all asked the same question about Facebook. All social networks before Facebook had faded away. But, Facebook didn't. Potential Slack buyers think that Slack is also here to stay in a similar manner. EDIT: I'm not saying Slack is Facebook.

One reason why I think Slack may survive longer than ICQ, Skype etc is how well integrated it is with all other services. For a tool to replace Slack, it should also provide the same level of seamless integration with GitHub, Google Docs, and a hundred other services. That's much harder to do than just building a messaging app.

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A consumer to consumer N-N network is much harder to coordinate a migration than a corporate N-N network, for one.

Also messengers aren't as N-N since you end up only talking to a small number of people after a while and don't actually want to move all your contacts.

I don't want to move all my FB contacts either but the number of connections I sort of care about is still likely more than 100.

Facebook isn't just about the people on it at this instant, it is about the accumulated history people build up on it.

Exporting your Facebook profile is a labyrinthian effort few would consider.

Switching chat providers is as simple as getting everyone to use the new thing and going from there, there is little to no baggage to bring with you.

I don't think that's true. Switching to another messaging service means you lose all past messages. It also means you need to integrate all other services (like Github, Google Doc, Travis, and many others) to this new messaging service. That is a lot of friction!

Chat services usually have an import service. At least for their more famous competitors. Doesn't Slack allow you to export your message history?

Skype has been going strong for 14 years. It's not impossible of course, but I have my doubts Slack will endure that long in its current form.

Yeah, I was primarily talking about using Skype for business / work messaging. Hence the point about integration etc.

> But, Facebook didn't

Not yet. We used to think MySpace is huge and not going away anytime soon

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