BBS to Slack: When the Chat Never Slept

The first time you dialed into a Bulletin Board System (BBS) felt like stumbling into a secret room hidden inside the telephone lines. The modem screamed, the screen flickered, and suddenly you were not alone. Someone out there, faceless but typing, was awake at the same odd hour as you. That sense—that the chat never stopped, and someone might reply if you waited long enough—was the hook that kept people logging back in.

From BBSs in the 80s and 90s to today’s Slack channels running in the background of every workplace, the lineage of real-time communication is the story of how humans built digital campfires and never let them die out.

The Lineage of “Always-On” Chat

Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)

Local, clunky, and text-heavy, but they laid the foundation. You dialed in, posted a message, and waited hours or days for a reply. Communities were niche, role-playing groups, local clubs, software pirates, but sticky because they were small enough to feel personal.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

Launched in 1988, IRC made “rooms” feel alive. Unlike BBS, it was synchronous: real people, typing live, from all over the globe. The scroll never stopped. If you were gone too long, you missed it. Bots, ops, flame wars—all part of the fabric.

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)

The buddy list changed everything. Presence became the killer feature. That little green dot wasn’t just status; it was validation. You stayed online longer than you needed, just to see who else might show up. AIM taught an entire generation about idle chats, away messages, and the intimacy of being constantly reachable.

Slack (and its cousins like Discord)

Slack didn’t invent chat. It professionalized it. It bridged the gap between IRC’s flexibility and AIM’s presence, turning it into something teams couldn’t live without. Channels, bots, integrations—all the DNA was there long before Slack. Slack packaged it for the workplace, making it feel like infrastructure.

Lessons in Stickiness

1. Presence is powerful. From AIM’s buddy list to Slack’s green dot, knowing “who’s here” creates an invisible gravity that keeps users coming back.
2. Communities thrive on shared rituals. IRC had /me actions and bots that greeted you. Slack has daily standup bots and reaction emojis. These rituals are the glue.
3. FOMO is not new. BBS users missed posts if they didn’t log in. IRC users missed the entire scroll if they weren’t present. Slack has threads you’ll “catch up on” forever. Scarcity of attention fuels the stickiness.
4. The noise problem repeats. Every generation of chat suffers from overload. BBSs had too many boards, IRC had too many channels, AIM had too many buddy groups, and Slack has too many workspaces. The trick isn’t to kill the noise, but to help people feel they belong in at least one corner of it.

For Founders Today

If you are building a community or product, study this lineage. The lessons are not in the technology, but in the psychology:

• Make people feel seen. Presence indicators, pings, and even lightweight rituals give the illusion of companionship.
• Encourage inside jokes. Communities that laugh together last longer.
• Don’t fear addiction. The best communication tools were all called “too addictive” at first. Stickiness is a feature, not a bug.
• Respect ephemerality. The scroll is part of the magic. The fact that you might miss something makes being present more valuable.

Just as Usenet was flooded with new users in September 1993, every generation of chat has its own Eternal September moment, when the tight-knit room suddenly fills with strangers. BBS sysops hated it. IRC channel ops fought it. AIM tried to hide it with buddy lists. Slack embraced it with threads and workspaces.

What stays true is this: once people find a place to talk, they rarely want to leave. The chat never really sleeps. It just migrates to the next platform.