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Slack just announced they're deleting most of the message history of workspaces on the free plan. They are not giving groups a chance to save their older messages. We still only have access to last 90 days. Options are: buy a paid plan for a month and use it to download your archives, or abandon your workspace history. May be able to hack this with free trials but either way it's a reminder that VC funding will run out and the free things you've come to rely upon will be used to exploit you. 23 comments
 @shauna Yeah, I feel similarly about Discord and Insta. We still don't have strong enough alternatives to have dragged over a critical mass! @mrcompletely @shauna From my perspective, the SaaS cost was quite a bit higher for Mattermost, and we didn't need some of the more advanced security features they market in defense & financial settings. I also liked that Zulip's marketing and community spaces were nearly completely devoid of AI references, whereas Mattermost is all over AI (and, with ties to Matrix, still into crypto/blockchain). I'd rather a platform that doesn't seek to exploit its customers.  @blaise @argv_minus_one @shauna oh interesting - I was going to go with a hosting and let them manage all that. :D @argv_minus_one @shauna well, we use matrix extensively in the GNOME space and so I know a few of the employees who work there - so I have a good recourse to ask questions if I have problems. I've always had a pretty good response from Matthew and others.  If you don't control it (i.e. FOSS, and either on-prem or easily migrated to a different host), it can be used to control *you*. @chowwiwang networks effects, better usability, better accessibility, more integrations, they literally don't know about other options, they don't have the time/energy to learn a new tool, there's lots of potential reasons @chowwiwang @shauna Yeah if something is providing enough value that losing access to it is such a disaster, then surely it's worth paying for it would cost my main Slack group about $5600 a month to go to a paid plan, which is about twice our total budget and thus a total non-starter. I'd *love* to pay a more reasonable amount for a better service, and I'd do so for a community of tech nerds that can be relied upon to navigate an unfamiliar service, but it wouldn't work for our community |
Gregory's Server
@shauna I've been playing with Zulip recently, and I really like it. There's a "topic" feature that still baffles me, but overall, it's very usable, open source (Apache 2.0), and available as a SaaS from the main maintainers.