I can't help but think this message could have been communicated with much more concise writing. Especially if you're going to rant - consider the reader's time and get to point.
Though I agree with a lot of his concerns the kicker for me was when he mentioned he is on 10 different Slack teams. That's like signing up for every email list you can find and then complaining that you get too much email.
I'm not sure I'm following his argument that lots of topic-centered inboxes are worse than one firehose.
It's not uncommon for me to finish the day with many of my rooms containing unread messages, because I was only caring about 2-3 rooms centered around the priorities of that day. So that's many messages I didn't have to wade through.
In contrast, email requires my attention by default. I've set up smart mailboxes to pull out more important content but there's still a joyous mix of unrelated content that's vying for my attention.
I have a co-worker that refuses to use any chat service at work. You have to email him if you need him and he will get back to you very quickly if he's not busy. That forces us to make a real case before emailing him because emails are more like a serious business!
Tl;dr The main point of the article seems to be that Slack is a huge time sink that is no more efficient than email.
I have to agree. Slack has a lot of cool features but ultimately I don't have time for socializing during work hours or tracking the endless feeds. Although, in my experience, discussions on Slack do tend to be about work, the long trails of comments from every possible participant are overwhelming. At least with email you can easily limit the number of participants in a conversation.
In my opinion, Slack is still the best way to have work conversations. Using integrations & plugins right gets you the information you want quickly. And if there are conversations going on that you don't want to be a part of, just turn them off and only accept direct @ messages or something. Help it help you, don't just expect it to solve all of your problems. This is the same exact type of rant as people breaking up with Twitter or Facebook or anything really.
We use Slack and get a lot out of it. We've got people on two continents and it really helps.
Sounds like the problem was over-using Slack. I've left Slack channels before because... well... noise. We tend to have a pretty quiet Slack but when we do use it it's convenient and easy and faster than e-mail.
I still often use e-mail for longer-format discussions.
> I’m finding that “always on” tendency to be a
> self-perpetuating feedback loop: the more everyone’s
> hanging out, the more conversations take place. The more
> conversations, the more everyone’s expected to
> participate. Lather, rinse, repeat.
and
> I belong to roughly 10 different Slack teams. People are
> very used to messaging me (directly or publicly) whether
> I’m online or not, so there’s a heavy social expectation
> for me to keep those conversational plates spinning on
> an ongoing basis, even if I’m signed out of all your
> clients.
Even when the interactions only take place at work, this reads like an engineer overwhelmed with responsibility and feeling like they can't step away.
The whole 'break-up' metaphor is a classic burnout pattern too.
Are these problems with Slack, or problems with the way people use Slack? I use Slack at work; it's just a fancy chat channel hooked up to our repository. We use it when we need to collaborate on something quickly and use other things when time is on our side.
