An open letter, or something
The good ending
Turns out that this post went pretty viral on Hacker News and Twitter/X:
I’m very happy to announce that a couple hours ago, Slack’s CEO got in contact with us and offered to put things right (I can’t exactly say what it is, but it’s better than the plan we were on previously!) A massive thank you to everyone who helped spread awareness - it was incredibly heartwarming to see so many people support us and help get this sorted.
With that being said though, this ordeal has made us think more deeply about entrusting data with external SaaSes and ensuring that we own our data is definitely going to be a very big priority going forward. I’d encourage you to think the same way!
For nearly 11 years, Hack Club - a nonprofit that provides coding education and community to teenagers worldwide - has used Slack as the tool for communication. We weren’t freeloaders. A few years ago, when Slack transitioned us from their free nonprofit plan to a $5,000/year arrangement, we happily paid. It was reasonable, and we valued the service they provided to our community.
However, two days ago, Slack reached out to us and said that if we don’t agree to pay an extra $50k this week and $200k a year, they’ll deactivate our Slack workspace and delete all of our message history.
One could argue that Slack is free to stop providing us the nonprofit offer at any time, but in my opinion, a six month grace period is the bare minimum for a massive hike like this, if not more. Essentially, Salesforce (a $230 billion company) is strong-arming a small nonprofit for teens, by providing less than a week to pony up a pretty massive sum of money, or risk cutting off all our communications. That’s absurd.
The impact
The small amount of notice has also been catastrophic for the programs that we run. Dozens of our staff and volunteers are now scrambling to update systems, rebuild integrations and migrate years of institutional knowledge. The opportunity cost of this forced migration is simply staggering.
Anyway, we’re moving to Mattermost. This experience has taught us that owning your data is incredibly important, and if you’re a small business especially, then I’d advise you move away too.
This post was rushed out because, well, this has been a shock! If you’d like any additional details then feel free to send me an email.