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Comment by aroch | Hacker News Reader

> people tend to flock over to the propietary option

Because it Just Works(tm) and there's no fiddling or faffing about necessary. I'm all for [FL]OSS applications, but sometimes proprietary solutions, even if they do the same task, are just easier to use and integrate (both technically and bureaucratically)

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In the case of something like Slack though, there's a huge business risk: Storing your confidential internal discussions with a random startup of questionable security practice.

True, but it also gives you an out if customer data is breached. You, with good faith, contracted a thirdparty to manage and secure your data. If you run your own Letschat and some exploit is found that dumps your chat db, you're/your company is on the hook.

FWIW, I don't and likely will never use or promote Slack for intracompany chat.

The opposite. If you install opensource software on you own servers, and make it available only for your company's intranet, you are perfectly safe from outside attackers. Proprietary software can also exploited or they can just sell your data for bucks, when they are about to bankrupt.

Unless someone compromises your intranet as a whole.

> Because it Just Works(tm) and there's no fiddling or faffing about necessary.

That's what marketing would have you believe. For example Hangouts broke the ecosystem horrible, and now xmpp and hangout users can no longer intercommunicate (and wonder why their messages are silently dropped).

Users complain that they need 6+ apps to keep in touch with friends.

The real answer, IMHO is "Because they market it as 'just works'.".

Then you put on a great deal of risk in terms of owning your data, having unwanted changes in the product, or Google acquiring (and closing down) your service provider.

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