Slack's future for the free tier option given the Salesforce acquisition?

You chose to base the community you built and manage upon a closed source, proprietary solution that is free... And that is never a good thing.

And now I'll tell you why.

First, it was never free. I don't have to explain that to you, especially in light of what Congress is doing with Google and Faceplant and Snap and Venmo and Twatter and a few others, coming up shortly where they're being compelled to mansplain their unethical practices in detail.

Second, as I've already mentioned, it's proprietary closed source software. And your not even hosting it yourself. Why would someone do that? Rhetorical question really, but perhaps you had no idea that your community would take off like it did, yet now that it has you also indicate that your users are, if not intransigent, they're entrenched in this particular solutions environment.

And now I'm going to ask you do so something.

First, go back and read the very first paragraph that @8bit wrote in this thread. That's really easy coz it's only a single sentence.

Second, rinse and repeat (read that sentence again).

Third, do that one more time 😉

And now that John's sentence has been burned into long term memory, use that advice in your future endeavors, even ones that aren't community related. For example, do you have any sort of contingency plan say, if Microsoft completely evaporated tomorrow and no longer existed? Stranger things have happened.

And now I'm going to offer you some potentially immediate transitional, parallel solutions.

First, go get a box. I have strong and informed opinions on great vendors to use, but as a service provider myself I will not wade into those subjective waters.

I personally prefer the Debian, OpenBSD, and Arch solutions below. SuSE isn't a bad choice either. Stay away from ewb00ntew, CentOS, Windows and Mac. An RPi 400 might sound intriguing, and it is, except that my concern for you would be the potential lack of availability due to the nature of a consumer based Internet connection in your home.

Next, install this:
https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/develop/INSTALL.md

If you feel comfortable with containerization and Docker then there is also a most excellent and extensible Ansible solution here:
https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

Slavi has done a fine job in creating and maintaining this if your preference of a Linux distro is either Debian or Arch. This depends upon PostgreSQL but whichever method you choose do NOT use SQLite.

This second method can provide you with a fully functional Synapse server in minutes that also enables you to support truly secure video conferencing (Jitsi), an email server, bridges for your matrix server that work with your existing Slack community (I'mma come back to this point in a minute) as well as SMS, Email, IRC, Discord (I just threw up a little bit in my mouth), Telegram, InstaSPAM, Faceplant, Twatter, and many more alternative communication platforms and methods so virtually any preference your existing community members have are accommodated at their leisure (Most of them penalty have a Faceplant, Twatter, or Telegram app installed on their phones already).

Now, speaking of Twatter (AKA the big cheez in so-called microblogging) read this to extend things even further:
https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/18/introducing-cerulean

Okay now that you've successfully and easily deployed Matrix services and you're connected to everything under the sun where communication is concerned, let's examine two things...

1. Cost:

You've either purchased a Raspberry Pi or Spun up a virtual machine (VPS) with some well connected provider like me (Apologies, but I just couldn't twice resist the shameless plug), so you've either incurred a one time cost for hardware in your home or you now have a small monthly recurring fee.

But the whopping price of all the software you just purchased set you back for the astronomical sum of... Wait! Every single thing was FOSS! So it's absolutely free!

This is where I strongly encourage you to contribute with a donation annually to a couple of the projects that you are benefiting from. A plug? Yes! Shameless? No. Just do it okay? 5 bucks or 5000 dollars, you decide, your conscience, but everything makes a difference :)

2. Your existing Slack community:

I promised to revisit this earlier and now we do.

Okay so now that you've deployed this InterEnterprise solution without saying a word to anyone in your community about it, the time has come to announce your concerns about the acquisition by Salesforce and the ill-advised choice you made in the first place to originally home your community within the monolithic confines of a closed source, proprietary SaaS platform that you don't even own and cannot yourself selfhost. In fact, have fun wresting your existing data from Slack - they don't play nice on this point, and to their credit, it's not beneficial for their business model anyway, but there are things you can do about this (but those are beyond the scope of this discussion).

So now you begin your marketing campaign with weekly invites and encouragements to your community for them to create a Matrix account on your server for themselves. They can do this via your web interface, or by downloading a completely free FOSS app like:

Element: https://element.io/

or

Schildichat: https://schildi.chat/

Both of which are available in the F-Droid repos at: https://F-Droid.org

You can easily do this by featuring and highlighting a different bridge that you've enabled supporting another web based method for their laptops or phone apps. i.e., Telegram or Twatter or InstaSPAM or Faceplant or SMS or email or one of a myriad other methods they probably already have installed on their PCs or phones.

You can close off new sign-ups via Slack at this point. When and if that day comes that you need to completely abandon Slack, must of your users will already be using some other favorite method via Matrix to participate in your community already so it will be a simple task to complete the migration. Easy Peasy!

Now, I haven't overtly mentioned this, but the operating platforms supported are:

Androids, iPhones, Linux, Mac, and Windows.

I wish you the very best in your endeavors and I hope that helps! :)

⛵

.

Definitely keeping an eye on this, as well. Especially after a bit of a scare a couple of months ago when a friend running a Slack community received a scary email saying they were going to start getting charged (turned out to be a mistake).

Agree on developing a contingency plan. It's getting easier now that more good community platforms are popping up. But no reason to switch right now, I think.

From the website:

It seems to be "unlimited period of time" and (I think) their paid plans are also locked in. So I don't think there's anything to worry about the free plan.

If at all there has to be changes, you'll be notified well before that. But as John said, it's nice to have a backup plan

i think it's always wise to make plans for a migration, even if you don't plan on doing it soon.

you never know and NOW is the time to plan, NOT when it announces tomorrow and you have until next week to move (or pay).

... not likely that this will happen, but, the planning process will reveal "weaknesses" in your view and holes in your strategy... it can also help you optimize current workflows.

I haven't heard anything about things changing yet, though I'm certainly keeping my eyes peeled.

Personally, I love Slack as community tool and hope they don't make it hard for those who use it for that purpose.

Has anyone spun up their own before? How much does it cost?