The Atlantic

Slack Is Basically Facebook Now

Slack’s redesign suggests that keeping up with Slack is the only work worth doing.
Source: Illustration by Jared Bartman / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

“Oh,” I slacked my Atlantic colleagues earlier this week, beneath a screenshot of a pop-up note that Slack, the group-chat software we use, had presented to me moments earlier. “A fresh, more focused Slack,” it promised, or threatened. On my screen, the program’s interface was suddenly a Grimace-purple color. I sensed doom in this software update.

Slowly, over the days that followed, complaints about the new Slack started trickling into our chats. “folks I cannot handle this new version of slack and will be taking the rest of the month off,” one staffer said. “I am reverting to sending physical memos

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