Ask HN: Is Slack getting worse for anyone else? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is Slack getting worse for anyone else?

7 pointsM4v3R12 comments

Like many companies we're using Slack for our internal communication and despite its flaws so far we liked the experience. Recently however it seems like the quality is deteriorating. We're encountering weird issues that didn't happen before. Some examples:

- chat doesn't scroll correctly when clicking on a message link

- microphone doesn't work in a huddle even when the correct device is selected

- screen sharing in huddles asks for system permissions even though they were already granted

- screen sharing sometimes just does not work (participants see black screen or the feed freezes), turning it off and on fixes the problem

- a few more that I don't remember off the top of my head

Anyone else experiencing this? Personally at this point I would like them to just keep Slack as is and don't break anything. The app is perfectly fine and doesn't need constant "improvements".

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It's the usual path of that kind of app. Remember AOL instant messenger? ICQ? WebEx? Go2Meeting?

When an app like that starts it is in a honeymoon period where they know they have to fix all of those little bugs to get people to adopt it. Once all your friends (or co-workers) are on it and the company is a household name they know it is hard to switch so they quit fixing those little problems.

It almost always gets so bad in the long term that a competitor eats their lunch but it usually takes about ten years.

You forgot the big example! Skype!

Which is probably a sign at how far they've fallen

Whatsapp is the counterexample. Although it does a lot less than Slack admittedly (but more than Skype!)

I now get more scam group forced invitations with their new community feature and a distracting persistent dot on the what's new tab. Its downhill-rolling is reaching relativistic speeds.

The UX changes have been annoying, but I can’t suggest they stagnate. Change happens. That said, I’m using it all day everyday across multiple accounts and I’ve had a lot more issues with slow or broken syncs (shutting down and restarting the app, again…) far more in the last year than any previous one.

We've had excellent experience with slack (~120 users). Outages and incidents happen but have never shut us down. We built our business operations on slackbots and it works. It's not problem free, and slack is absolutely not innovative, but it's been solid for us since 2014.

That last major UI update where they ruined the sidebar still really sucks. Other than that it works fine.

A couple years ago when I was looking for a new job, I applied to a handful of FAANGs, some decacorns, and...Slack.

Slack was the only one I got auto rejected. Every other place I did a full onsite loop for, and I got some offers. Except Slack. Maybe they're actively not looking for talent? I dunno. :)

Right now I don't get notifications for direct messages from one particular co-worker.

Other times I get a red circle in the favicon indicating there's something new to read, but I can't find anything new, as none of the items on the left bar are highlighted.

The microphone issue happens all the time with a coworker. I noticed it being generally laggy as well. Sometimes the notification badge won’t go away even though there aren’t any left.

My notifications are all delayed by a minute or two. The UI just chugs too.

No, it’s been working great for me and has been for like 10+ years now.

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