'$5bn for Slack?! I refuse to pay!' You don't pay – and that's its biggest problem • The Register

From a Slack reality check

"Surely email can’t be the end point of workplace communication and collaboration? No. We’ve had IM: Wave from Google, Groove from Lotus genius Ray Ozzie (which was bought by Microsoft), and we’ve got Skype, owned by Microsoft, too. Before this lot, it was Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. In the background today is document sharing like Google Docs and DropBox.

It’s all “collaboration,” right? Each has been hailed as the next big thing and each went the way of its predecessor – surpassed by the next big thing.

The point should be crystal clear: workplace collaboration is waiting for that one big thing. The VC in on the ground floor of that next big thing can clean up. That’s the big-dog theory, anyway, and you can see why the moneymen are pitching in. The riddle here is why does Slack want more? It has taken $339m so far."

'$5bn for Slack?! I refuse to pay!' You don't pay – and that's its biggest problem • The Register