These are great points. talksik was just the line/display name of the user. We should clarify.
1. That's a great point. We have been juggling this recently. The pros of keeping it ephemeral is that people don't try to be so formal, and allow free-flowing conversation. And also most things resolve in a day, and if something is urgent, they will reach out again. However, the weekend case is interesting.
There is an additional anxiety if things stay for longer, however, we are considering allowing you to play back missed/unplayed clips older than 24 hours just like Snapchat.
2. This is what I would say: It's a new medium that closely mimics natural human conversation as opposed to the death by thousand cuts of any text based messaging platform. It's 2023, humans shouldn't type. We know that most people only have a 3-8 coworkers that are important and spend 80% of their time. They will use Slack for occasional social media-like usecase, but it's too noisy and flowy wins by doing less and being a place for focused execution.
In addition, Slack is all about being a knowledge base (as their acroynm), and they would have to cut everything and change their mission to get to the essense of human conversation that flowy is obsessed about.
Regardless, we beleive the market is huge and there is a cult of people who are dying for a "less is more" approach. Slack and Zoom and Loom are all due for this approach to team and human communication.
3. Great point again! We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument)
Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion.
Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so"
Me personally? I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays.
Sorry for the long response! You're points have been really helpful. Your last point is spot on! Flowy is only for you and your core team. We need to articulate that more clearly as it seems to be assumed that it's a Slack alternative from the getgo (although for startups, it may very well be with a email + flowy combination).