[9erdelta]

I think it is a _little bit_ off to just consider Slack to be a chat app. Sure chat is the core function...One thing I find super valuable about Slack is that it is a searchable archive. When a new person joins a company, they have literally years and years worth of searchable content. This helps get up to speed, cuts down on time spent asking questions etc. I find myself searching Slack many times a day pretty much every day at work. Not to mention automated workflows, calendar, drive integration etc.

[gallamine]

> When a new person joins a company, they have literally years and years worth of searchable content.

IF your company is paying to preserve it. At my not-very-tiny employer we only pay for something like 1 year of retention. I have no idea if that's a legal or financial decision, but either way it seems like a dumb one.

[davidwparker]

This is the exact reason we use Discord at my day job. Unlimited history for free. We still also get plenty of other integrations, webhooks, and bot-building for other automated things.

[trevorishere]

Many orgs would be concerned about Discord’s data mining of all chats, though.

[spurgu]

User account retention you mean? This is why I try to shy away from work-related conversations in private messages (only casual chat) and encourage everything to happen in channels, which in turn are preserved.

[learc83]

Pretty sure that's a legal decision. The cheapest slack plan comes with unlimited backups from what I know.

[hhh]

Definitely legal. In Teams our messages are only retained for 90 days. You have to create a team for messages to be stored permanently. Similar for surveillance footage. Fortune 50

[fuzzer37]

Just curious why this would be a legal decision? I can't think of any reason that keeping messages would be a bad thing.

[jhickok]

If you are only required to keep data for one year and you keep it for 2 years, you can still be subpoenaed for that 2 year old data if you keep it. Thus, keeping data for longer than you are required is an increased business risk.

[saagarjha]

You’re doing something wrong and don’t want it to be subpoenaed?

[thekyle]

I believe the way Slack works is that old messages are kept but hidden unless you pay. So someone could still subpoena the old messages.

[awa]

Its more about messages taken out of context or a banter about a competitor between 2 random ICs getting highlighted in a big case.