• I think you might just be blinded by Discord for some reason. I’m not sure what “niche” you’re referring to with Discord that can’t be provided with forums (unless you’re worried about cosmetics I guess?). There are forums with real-time communications like chat, notifications, direct-messaging. I’m not trying to argue, getting your perspective is always helpful and might show something I’m missing, but your responses seem vague and not really a counter-point.

    • My perspective is of a FOSS developer with multiple communities of thousands. If you can’t grasp it, that’s on you. It’s also why purity moralizing isn’t useful. I have only so much mental bandwidth to spend on organizing and self-hosting. If people are not stepping up to do the community management and infrastructure work, I will go with the past of least resistance.

      • If you can’t grasp it, that’s on you. It’s also why purity moralizing isn’t useful

        oh ok, thanks for the clarification.

        If people are not stepping up to do the community management and infrastructure work, I will go with the past of least resistance.

        That’s basically it in a nut shell, path of least resistance. Doesn’t refute any claims made in the article or arguments presented here. Just a shame another company has a stranglehold on a whole category of services that have to be used to participate in society … while developing FOSS.

        • Doesn’t refute any claims made in the article or arguments presented here.

          Nothing to refute. I never said otherwise. Discord is just more convenient for people already overworked.

          Just a shame another company has a stranglehold on a whole category of services that have to be used to participate in society … while developing FOSS.

          Yes, it is a shame. I hope you’re doing something practical about it instead of moralizing towards FOSS devs.