Argh, what I wouldn’t give for Discord to absolutely tank itself.
Unfortunately, while the reddit “migration” was difficult, Discord would be even harder to move people from - while also not being as easy to just drop on a dime, since at least for myself there are plenty of friends on there that I don’t have another way to contact…
Discord would have to be really stupid and do something really egregious though to get everyone to move off it all at once. The dream? Mumble and IRC, give me those back. I don’t see that happening of course, Matrix would still be nice but it doesn’t really do voice channels well.
Could pair Mumble with Discord, but I think the days of people being okay with having a different app for messaging and voice communication is over (when it comes to gaming surely) after a post-Discord world.
Just curious, why the criticism of discord? Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I haven’t heard anything too negative about them - nothing like the controversy surrounding reddit, Twitter, etc.
A combination of personal preference, and just how much I despise what they’ve done in terms of making information hidden away from the internet - anything on Discord cannot be indexed (and there is no way as a server admin to allow indexing as an opt-in capability), they’re just another big platform that is waiting till it hits critical mass to then start turning against its users (in my opinion).
Oh, and the fact that they couldn’t care less about the Linux version of their desktop client (which is riddled with issues due to being on a grossly outdated version of Electron) also doesn’t sit well with me, but god forbid you try to develop or use an alternative client… In a way, just like Reddit now I suppose.
Unfortunately, unless all of your friends are in the FOSS world, it feels useless to even entertain the idea of convincing them to switch to something else. Just another case of the “Network Effect”…
It’s more the core of how Discord works then anything. The fact that it’s hard for knowledge to persist, leading to channels just being people asking the same questions over and over.
And it’s not really indexable or searchable, so even if people are trying to provide good information, people are going to struggle to find it.
All the downsides of a private service in that the information is stashed away and impossible to search for publicly, all the downsides of a public service in that none of your messages are private or encrypted and so can be read by the company or whoever pays them!
Before I (unfortunately) budged, it was due to inferior usability (imo), bloated experience, and most notably, shitty privacy policy compared to the likes of a (self-hosted) TeamSpeak server. Discord is free because you’re the product, as with any other service.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my own biggest concern with Discord is that it seems to me that they’re inching their way towards either an IPO or acquisition. The former would end with Discord exploiting our data as much as possible, and the latter with years of our data being put in the hands of the highest bidder. Microsoft acquiring Skype was rough; something similar occurring with Discord would be downright brutal. The thought of a corporation exploiting all of the conversations about extremely personal events is frightening.
Not OP, but as someone who uses discord every day, I think I can speak to the general criticism. Discord has way more bloat than what is needed by most out of a communications program. They’ve continued to add “features” that a lot of the user base doesn’t really care about, but take up visual space and operating space. Discord Nitro ads are also on the list of criticisms as it’s nearly constant.
I love having a place to easily interact with communities I care about, but if somehow a less “noisy” alternative came along and everyone I care about moved (lol), I’d change in a heartbeat and uninstall discord.
It has the same downside of any proprietary technology. It can’t be forked or audited by third parties. All of it is consolidated in the hands of one company and your data belongs to them.
Could pair Mumble with Discord, but I think the days of people being okay with having a different app for messaging and voice communication is over (when it comes to gaming surely) after a post-Discord world.
Also, as much as I love Mumble and its voice quality (and low latency), Discord is much more plug and play. Mumble needs microphone specific fine tuning to work well. Which is worth it for me, but is nothing you can quickly get someone else to do.
Yeah it’s always a project to get new people started with Mumble. It doesn’t feel like it should be so difficult, but people always struggle.
Ironically, I struggled immensely with forcing Discord to stop messing with my system audio settings, which is apparently something apps are allowed to do in Windows.
In my circle it’s always the fine tuning of voice activation thresholds that causes trouble. Then you either hear every single background noise or half of their sentences are swallowed. Once it’s tuned correctly it’s a bliss, but getting there can be quite exhausting.
I had to push so hard to convince my main friend group to move our group chat over to Discord. They would have happily kept using Facebook messenger forever. I hope discord doesn’t start tanking because a switch to yet another different platform would be a hard sell.
Holy cow I was in the exact same boat haha. Just this year we finally moved clan chat over since we were recruiting. They were the last reason I even checked Facebook.
I’m not aware of what Discord has been doing that is causing people’s concern. What are people currently concerned about re: Discord?
I accepted that it would have to start doing something eventually - it can’t operate for free forever. But the only news I’ve heard recently is giving servers optional tools to monetise, and free users can continue to not use servers that do that. The few servers I’ve been in that do it are doing it ironically - donate to the sub to gain access to a channel with a giant 🍆 emoji and nothing else! Comments disabled! etc.
I wouldn’t blame Patreon for somebody moving all their content behind a $20/m sub, I just wouldn’t subscribe to them… so I’m not concerned with Discord until it enshittifies for users.
I use a combination of Matrix and Mumble, personally, as well as hosting the servers for each. But yeah, the convenience of Discord is hard to compete with.
May I ask why you’d like discord to tank itself? I know they have some ridiculous limits on non-nitro users, and the design keeps getting bloated with nonsense no one asked for, but to me it seems to work pretty slick for sharing things like photos and chatting in games.
I guess those reasons alone are enough to want it to go down, but I’m curious if there’s something more that I haven’t heard
Argh, what I wouldn’t give for Discord to absolutely tank itself.
Unfortunately, while the reddit “migration” was difficult, Discord would be even harder to move people from - while also not being as easy to just drop on a dime, since at least for myself there are plenty of friends on there that I don’t have another way to contact…
Discord would have to be really stupid and do something really egregious though to get everyone to move off it all at once. The dream? Mumble and IRC, give me those back. I don’t see that happening of course, Matrix would still be nice but it doesn’t really do voice channels well.
Could pair Mumble with Discord, but I think the days of people being okay with having a different app for messaging and voice communication is over (when it comes to gaming surely) after a post-Discord world.
Just curious, why the criticism of discord? Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I haven’t heard anything too negative about them - nothing like the controversy surrounding reddit, Twitter, etc.
Just a personal preference?
A combination of personal preference, and just how much I despise what they’ve done in terms of making information hidden away from the internet - anything on Discord cannot be indexed (and there is no way as a server admin to allow indexing as an opt-in capability), they’re just another big platform that is waiting till it hits critical mass to then start turning against its users (in my opinion).
Oh, and the fact that they couldn’t care less about the Linux version of their desktop client (which is riddled with issues due to being on a grossly outdated version of Electron) also doesn’t sit well with me, but god forbid you try to develop or use an alternative client… In a way, just like Reddit now I suppose.
Unfortunately, unless all of your friends are in the FOSS world, it feels useless to even entertain the idea of convincing them to switch to something else. Just another case of the “Network Effect”…
It’s more the core of how Discord works then anything. The fact that it’s hard for knowledge to persist, leading to channels just being people asking the same questions over and over.
And it’s not really indexable or searchable, so even if people are trying to provide good information, people are going to struggle to find it.
All the downsides of a private service in that the information is stashed away and impossible to search for publicly, all the downsides of a public service in that none of your messages are private or encrypted and so can be read by the company or whoever pays them!
Before I (unfortunately) budged, it was due to inferior usability (imo), bloated experience, and most notably, shitty privacy policy compared to the likes of a (self-hosted) TeamSpeak server. Discord is free because you’re the product, as with any other service.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my own biggest concern with Discord is that it seems to me that they’re inching their way towards either an IPO or acquisition. The former would end with Discord exploiting our data as much as possible, and the latter with years of our data being put in the hands of the highest bidder. Microsoft acquiring Skype was rough; something similar occurring with Discord would be downright brutal. The thought of a corporation exploiting all of the conversations about extremely personal events is frightening.
Not OP, but as someone who uses discord every day, I think I can speak to the general criticism. Discord has way more bloat than what is needed by most out of a communications program. They’ve continued to add “features” that a lot of the user base doesn’t really care about, but take up visual space and operating space. Discord Nitro ads are also on the list of criticisms as it’s nearly constant. I love having a place to easily interact with communities I care about, but if somehow a less “noisy” alternative came along and everyone I care about moved (lol), I’d change in a heartbeat and uninstall discord.
I cancelled my sub because as a paying customer I still get spammed with those ads popped up on top of your user panel.
I didn’t know they stuck around if you upgraded. That’s awful lol
It has the same downside of any proprietary technology. It can’t be forked or audited by third parties. All of it is consolidated in the hands of one company and your data belongs to them.
Also, as much as I love Mumble and its voice quality (and low latency), Discord is much more plug and play. Mumble needs microphone specific fine tuning to work well. Which is worth it for me, but is nothing you can quickly get someone else to do.
Yeah it’s always a project to get new people started with Mumble. It doesn’t feel like it should be so difficult, but people always struggle.
Ironically, I struggled immensely with forcing Discord to stop messing with my system audio settings, which is apparently something apps are allowed to do in Windows.
In my circle it’s always the fine tuning of voice activation thresholds that causes trouble. Then you either hear every single background noise or half of their sentences are swallowed. Once it’s tuned correctly it’s a bliss, but getting there can be quite exhausting.
That is very true too! The future is uh, not looking so great in that regards sadly.
I had to push so hard to convince my main friend group to move our group chat over to Discord. They would have happily kept using Facebook messenger forever. I hope discord doesn’t start tanking because a switch to yet another different platform would be a hard sell.
Holy cow I was in the exact same boat haha. Just this year we finally moved clan chat over since we were recruiting. They were the last reason I even checked Facebook.
I’m not aware of what Discord has been doing that is causing people’s concern. What are people currently concerned about re: Discord?
I accepted that it would have to start doing something eventually - it can’t operate for free forever. But the only news I’ve heard recently is giving servers optional tools to monetise, and free users can continue to not use servers that do that. The few servers I’ve been in that do it are doing it ironically - donate to the sub to gain access to a channel with a giant 🍆 emoji and nothing else! Comments disabled! etc.
I wouldn’t blame Patreon for somebody moving all their content behind a $20/m sub, I just wouldn’t subscribe to them… so I’m not concerned with Discord until it enshittifies for users.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen a mashup of either Mumble + IRC/XMPP or even Mumble + Matrix yet.
I use a combination of Matrix and Mumble, personally, as well as hosting the servers for each. But yeah, the convenience of Discord is hard to compete with.
I still have TeamSpeak on my machine. I always thought it was a fairly decent chat program.
May I ask why you’d like discord to tank itself? I know they have some ridiculous limits on non-nitro users, and the design keeps getting bloated with nonsense no one asked for, but to me it seems to work pretty slick for sharing things like photos and chatting in games.
I guess those reasons alone are enough to want it to go down, but I’m curious if there’s something more that I haven’t heard