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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

>> Revenue rose to $145 million from $92 million a year earlier. Slack said it had more than 100,000 paying customers, a 37 percent increase over last year.

They should be fine. $307m of the loss was stock-related compensation.

How could you screw up a business who has a product as popular as Slack?

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Might say the same about ICQ, Skype, Messenger, etc.

All communications platforms so far have come and gone in vogue.

I remember in 2005 when everyone in our office communicated over MS Messenger.

Maybe Slack is to instant messaging as Facebook was to social networking and will get some longevity. But it's too early to tell yet.

The difference between chat and facebook is that with a team in chat, you can move it to anywhere (teams, irc, mattermost, zulip, whatsapp). With facebook, you can't move your friends, so you're stuck.

Especially if you are on free tier since then you don't even have a history held hostage.

I use Skype daily and have never had a problem with it, I've never understood the hate if i'm honest.

The Skype of today is crap compared to the first Skype I used and loved. It is completely unclear what it tries to be now and the interface is horrible.

I have an unlimited-Europe plan with it and a phone number attached to it, but I'd rather use something else some day. I haven't found any cheaper alternatives though. Maybe someone here can point one out to me.

I agree that Skype is an awful UI these days, think that Microsoft ruined it, and don’t know a better one to suggest.

But as an aside, “the cheapest one you can find is horrible” is probably appropriate for what “cheapest” usually translates to in products, and expecting to find one cheaper and better when you can’t find one cheaper at all, seems optimistic.

> It is completely unclear what it tries to be now and the interface is horrible.

Instant messenger, internet phone and video/presentation conferencing.

Am i missing something here because its literally my primary business communication tool.

It isn't aimed at being a good business communication tool though. It has a strange design that obviously tries to be cool and hip, but lacks proper visual hierarchy and contrast. It is hard to use if you aren't tech-savvy. My mother ends up calling me on Telegram of all things because in her mind Skype isn't something you call with anymore. Even though I then call her on Skype because Telegram doesn't have video. She used to have a Skype-phone (physical unit), but support for that has died out pretty quickly.

At least a few years ago, I remember the bigger issues were:

- no message history past a few months

- the redesign made it look like a phone messaging app

- poor group chat functionality that didn't have anything beyond basic permissions

- calls were peer-to-peer for the longest time, making it mostly trivial to get someone's residential IP and DDOS their network.

It might have improved since then (I know calls are no longer P2P) but that's why a large portion of the gamers moved to Discord.

Skype seems so ugly and confusing from first glance. I miss the old-old-old Skype where the UI didn't appear as formidable.

Did any of those really have paid tiers that people actually used? People do pay for slack in a way that I don't ever recall them paying for those, partly I think because there are many more online only/remote businesses now than back then.

Why wouldn't stock based compensation count as equivalent to wage expenses? I saw similar comments about Uber/Lyft's loses being primarily made up of stock comp loss, but would all the people getting the stock still work there if they weren't getting paid stock?

By taking too much investment, needing to pay back too much so you end up destroying your business for short term gains.

edit: Just look at what's happening to Patreon

What’s happening to Patreon?

I’m out of the loop. What’s happening with Patreon?

They got a big pushback after deciding that they (wrongly) thought that they were a content provider platform and not a payment platform and started banning users with political views they didn't like.

I think this is what you're referring to[0]; it only happened because Visa, MC, and Paypal can dangle their source of revenue over their heads any time they want something changed or a creator removed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801

That appears to be about adult content (porn I assume).

I was referring to Carl Benjamin being removed. Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, who were two of Paterson biggest earners removed themselves as a result and encouraged others to do the same.

https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/17/jordan-peterson-sam-harri...

Genuine question: How could a company confuse of what they mean to their users by such a huge margin? A content provider vs payment platform. Woah!

They aren't confusing it. It's part of the lie these companies tend to construct--if they say they are something, over time, they hope everyone believes it. "We aren't just a <boring commoditized alread-solved problem> (even though they are), we're a <fancy amalgamation of things you never thought possible>!"

Staffing way too high, too!

They paid out double their revenue in stock? That doesn’t sound fine. It sounds like their costs are over 3 times their revenue.

Google and Microsoft are both offering equivalent products for free. I don't think Slack has established that they can maintain their pricing and continue to grow.

> after it predicts a larger loss

IMO the bigger issue here is there expectations to lose 9c / share next quarter, which isn't explained by that $307 M last quarter.

Ask Yahoo, Uber and Lyft.

Just because a product is popular doesn’t mean it’s a good business.

It also amazes me that people hand wave compensation as a “real” expense....

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