And if the client used some kind of reliable and fault tolerant connection method so that the app open opened up and connected really quickly instead of being behind layers of websocket over socket handshaking. At the moment it takes nearly 30s-1m from open to latest chat message visible.
Instead of improving the speed they've put more effort into making the loading screens dynamic and appealing, which is quite myopic.
I think i've written to Slack over 2 years ago letting them know how painful it is to use slack in Africa, Australia or where latency is high (even with a fast connection). I was hoping their valuation and billions and funding would help them improve their software or even make a native mac app.
They have a plans for improving usability for remote users: https://slack.engineering/making-slack-feel-like-slack-a7c4e...
They have a native(if electron can be called native) App now for mac. I agree with the latency and performance issues though.
The Slack app practically freezes on changing network or if you wake you mac from sleep.
It's not native.
You should check out Zulip.
Flowdock is also pretty great
https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/804971838271004672
As an aside, I think it's delightful someone made a Twitter handle named @slackThreadsYet for this.