Slack threatened Hack Club, a nonprofit, with a sudden massive price increase and data deletion, forcing them to migrate to Mattermost.
- After 11 years of using Slack, Hack Club was given less than a week to agree to a massive price hike or lose their workspace and all message history.
- Despite paying a reasonable $5,000/year nonprofit rate, Slack demanded an additional $50k immediately and $200k annually.
- The short notice caused significant disruption, forcing staff and volunteers to urgently rebuild integrations and migrate years of institutional knowledge.
- Hack Club decided to move to Mattermost, an open-source platform, to ensure ownership of their data.
- Slack’s CEO later contacted Hack Club to offer a resolution, but the experience highlighted the risks of relying on external SaaS providers.
The Good Ending
The article begins by noting that after the post went viral, Slack’s CEO reached out and offered a resolution better than the previous plan. The author thanks the community for support.
The Problem
Hack Club, a nonprofit that provides coding education to teenagers, has used Slack for nearly 11 years and previously paid $5,000/year. However, Slack suddenly demanded an extra $50k within a week and $200k per year, threatening to deactivate the workspace and delete all message history. The author criticizes this as strong-arming by Salesforce, a $230 billion company.
The Impact and Response
The short notice caused chaos, with staff and volunteers scrambling to migrate systems and rebuild integrations. The opportunity cost is staggering. As a result, Hack Club is moving to Mattermost, emphasizing the importance of owning your data, especially for small businesses.
Read this at any depth.
Install Depth and pick your level — Glance for a sentence, Summary for the gist, Read for the full take. Free daily quota, no signup needed.
Add to Chrome