But I think it is equally short sited to blame the tool.
Whatever tool you choose, you have to FULLY adopt. Everyone has to be bought in, learning the features (like do not disturb), setting ground rules which make sense for your company and how people within it like to get things done.
Seriously, I never felt more productive than when I used Trac, I don't think issue tracking has really evolved much more than that save useful social features and code review (essentially what killed Trac because the Git integration was never very good).
When I look back as to why that was, I realize it was because the WHOLE COMPANY was bought in. We all used it, we all used it well and respectfully.
This is the madness of the agile world. Viewing the tool as the solution rather than just that, an implement, a ways to a means that starts before its usage and and ends after its usage.
> Remote work culture is a defense mechanism against the distracting open office
Disagree as to the reason remote work has become a thing, but I do think it's largely because video conferencing works better every year, tools like Slack exist, and code review tools can be done line-for-line remotely.
But, has anyone seen the Slack diagram for whether or not to send a message? It is extremely well thought out, but settings can't be useful if you don't set them.
> Chat, at least on slack, isn’t grouped or threaded.
Yes they are, now.
> ...non-trivial to know what the current topics of conversation are in a slack channel or to assign one of those topics to any given message.
Then speak up and tell people to stick to the topic, change it, or open a new room.
> ctrl-f, the one constant of web interaction, is broken in channels if you’re searching more than one page up.
Use the Slack client
> Middle managers will make deliverables....
And here is where I stop reading. This is an organizational problem you see manifesting on the tool and you are incorrectly assigning blame to the tool.
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You have to be committed to using whatever tool is chosen. Just choose one and actually use it.
These tools are a discipline not a freedom from discipline.