Maybe not the wisest choice

The Bruin suggests a poor choice was made in purchasing a messaging program: 

Buy what you need, not what you want. It’s a lesson UCLA would benefit from learning.

The university recently paid $259,200 for a campus-wide subscription to Slack, a workplace communication platform. UCLA Slack was released on Sept. 21 in what could be described as a “soft launch,” since students were not notified of the new platform.

The sizable purchase comes at a time when the University of California faces a nearly $2 billion loss in revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. UCLA alone lost $653 million between March and August – the highest financial loss of all UC campuses. Not to mention, many Bruins face critical financial distress and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The university’s purchase of Slack represents an unnecessary splurge that wastes valuable funding administrators are quick to say they don’t have. Rather than throw money at an app many may not use, the university could have used those funds to help students meet more dire needs. Administrators may be removed from their students’ realities, but they would be wise not to make the same mistake moving forward.

After all, a free messaging app is irrelevant when you don’t have the money to pay rent or buy food.

Many students already use GroupMe, a free messaging platform with similar functionality as Slack, and UCLA-provided licensed Zoom subscriptions for both social and academic communication. With these two platforms already employed in full swing, Slack doesn’t bring anything new to the table...

Full editorial at https://dailybruin.com/2020/10/19/editorial-uclas-slack-subscription-splurge-wastes-funding-for-students

Yours truly did a quick peruse of the Slack website and, indeed, it doesn't seem to add much to existing capabilities.