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Comment by tarikjn | Hacker News Reader

I wish this was forked instead of killed. Everytime I use Screenhero, it has been butter smooth.

I would be ready to pay $3/month for screenhero standalone or a pay-per-use. I'm not interested in Slack, the use cases are clearly different.

I think Slack missed or rather killed an opportunity here, they could have kept Screenhero (and use it to upsell Slack) and also integrated it in Slack. Not only that but it took them over 2 years to make this integration and in the meantime Screenhero remained invite-only.

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Screenhero was the best way for me to remotely support my parents computers. I know there are a thousand tools out there for this, but Screenhero was so incredibly simple that it beat out everything else.

I've used it for this, but much prefer setting up TeamViewer on their computers with my account so that I can hop on their computers anytime to check on updates, virus scan, etc. without them even needing to be present.

I still need their help with they accidentally disconnect from the internet. I would like to have a conversation with the companies who put an unlabeled physical (or key combo) wifi power switches on laptops intended for home use. It's my first troubleshooting step now when family members on laptops have connection issues.

Some laptops have a BIOS setting for what that switch toggles.

+1 That's a great use case ^

Have you tried USE Together? Collaborative screen sharing with multiple mouse cursors and simple web browser access. Currently in free beta, we are working hard on Mac support, coming really soon :) http://www.use-together.com

Note that this user appears to work for the company which makes this product

He does say "we" in his last sentence.

I'd hate to jump on board a replacement only to have MS buy it for a crappy Skype integration. I see it's a free beta now, any word on the monetization plan?

Not yet, USE Together will stay free during the beta, while we are scaling it. Unlike Slack, it doesn't require the users accessing your screen to have any account on our servers.

i wonder if screenhero's smoothness had anything to do with it being stuck in invite-only limbo. when you have tight control on how many people are using your app, you don't really have to solve infrastructure scaling problems yet.

It wasn't P2P? Yikes...

It was p2p, except for group shares and/or restrictive firewalls

Have you tried Discord? It's geared towards gamers but it's got most of the features we needed from Slack.

More info: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500098275...

Due to shenanigans toward Jason Scott[0], and the whole "Hype Squad" thing I have zero interest in supporting Discord.

[0]: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/903663357210841088?lang=en

I fail to see the "offense". Maybe the tone in that email is aggravating to you as it seems to be for him, but... I can only shrug and wonder. I'd say it's not a bit worse than half of the promotional emails from services I (or my company) pay for in a week...

I think they don't let other people take over your screen the way ScreenHero does though?

I have to +1 this. I use it to communicate with my son, who resisted my efforts to get him to reply to my emails (since youngsters hate email, apparently) or join a family slack.

Sad to say it, but it seems like email is the new fax machine. At least in terms of the younger generation's perception of it as a communications technology.

When they're old enough to work they'll be forced to interact with people who aren't their friends, and then they'll discover a new appreciation for email.

It won't go away all at once, but a scant few years after "they're" old enough to work, their friends will have been as well, and just we don't consider a company without a website to be a "real" company in this modern times, a company without a Signal/Facebook Messenger/Snapchat contact link will be seen as old and antiquated. I will mourn the loss of the federated open system we call email, and perhaps you're right - it may never go away. But the younger generation doesn't stay young forever.

I don't see this happening today and I don't see this happening tomorrow either.

The non-email world is fragmented. Signal? Facebook? Snapchat? Whatsapp? None have achieved ubiquity and their audience is constantly churning over to the next fad platform. Facebook has the best shot and there's still a huge part of the population that doesn't want their FB life to intersect with their work life.

Email is the lowest common denominator. The fact that "younger generations" (as if every 3 years is a "new generation"?) choose a different platform only reinforces the value of email as the only thing that everyone can agree on.

What I really need are disposable slacks.

Think of a group text with random emails and etc and it simply raises up a slack with all the parties invited and owned by the creator - then you can choose to dissolve or make perm the slack as needed...

Sounds like Google Wave

Was google wave the same as "wave" which then became "microsoft wave" which was the team/cvs/workflow product from ~2006 or so?

Yeah, I agree. Screenhero is fantastic. I wish there was something that good that is OSS.

I absolutely feel your pain. So a friend and I started work on something that should please you. I expect it should be available soon.

Did Screenhero not work with the slack add-on? I think I made an account without an invite recently just to check it out.

Sounds like a business opportunity!

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