I have only read negative things about slack - can any of you give me a good list of reasons for why people don't like it and whether that's accurate

because hating on shit in bandwagons is cool ok?
geez get with the program man...

It is very memory-hungry. And that is not entirely true :)

Th standalone desktop app is very memory hungry (it could easily eat up to 10G of your RAM and more!). The web application is just fine. Frankly I don't have any complaints about it.

The hunger for RAM can be seen in other similar desktop apps: Teams, Skype, Slack, Outlook,.. So whenever there is a way to use a webapp - I always go for it.

@netikras it is not a memory hog because it is a desktop app. It is a memory hog, in part, because it is a "browser app" running in a local web server disguised as a desktop app.

I don't dislike slack itself. I do, however, dislike how people use slack to the exclusion of email and claim there is no reason to use email ever. That kind of tool snobbery ignores the need for different kind of communication. Slack is fine for discussion type communications. For that function, I find it more natural than email. When I'm describing or consuming complex material with a very small number of people, I find email to be the better method. Email is also better for communications to a specific group. (I find slack users strangely confident that a message posted to a particular channel is somehow going to be seen and read by everyone in an organization without ever asking themselves who does and does not subscribe to the channel). Regardless, slack is fine, Outlook is fine, Teams is fine. None is a direct replacement for any other which is why most use more than one.

@monkeyboy It does not change anything. It could be a memory hog because of cloudy weather for all I care.

If I install a desktop app (despite the tech it's built in) and it consumes too much memory - that desktop app is a memory hog.

@netikras no doubt. I was just responding to your lumping those apps together as "similar". Outlook is a "native" app, for example, while slack is not. The lines are blurry, and your statement ... "so I use web apps when I can" made it sound like you were not lumping those apps together because they are all memory hogs. Regardless, I don't mean to derail the comments from the original question about slack.

@writeascript
I don't "hate" slack, although it's 10k message limit is a bit fucked up.
I do enjoy having it integrated with Jenkins and giving me status updates to builds, but yea, as an email alt it's useless but as a team chat it gets the job done for quick things.

@AleCx04 don't make me bring out the PHP bandwagon. It hasn't had much attention lately.

Its like checking 20 Email boxes everytime and when a collegue thinks agile means disturbing you because HE or SHE needs a realtime solution thats a huge slack disadvantage. Thankfully, that they havent invented a read message symbol like in WhatsApp. Overall its an IRC client bullshitty programmed and spreaded by hipsters.

@C0D4 we are both the php liberation figthers let them bring the hate!!