• Discord. God I hated how I was one of my friends that got everyone to switch, and now I’m the first one out. I don’t think they have added a feature that hasn’t been an annoyance for a while, and after a year of no mobile notifications working and their staff being incompetent (especially if you are a free user) I’m just over it.

    Everyone worshipping it is kind of a turn off too. It’s a service y’all, I’ve had everything from AIM to Slack and I’m sure there will be a million others. Worshipping a corp is gross.

  •  hal   ( @hal@sopuli.xyz ) 
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    511 year ago

    Good. Discord is the cancer of the free searchable internet.

    If you really need communication, use XMPP or Matrix.

    And for everything else use stuff like forums and Lemmy and mastodon reddit Twitter whatever. But not closed walled gardens that are not searchable on the net. It’s astonishing that so many people gatekeep content behind this Discord crap.

    •  boonhet   ( @boonhet@lemm.ee ) 
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      181 year ago

      It sucks that Discord is being used for a bunch of large communities that would be better served by a forum for future access, but for just groups of friends, it’s way easier to use than anything fediverse. And if I’m chatting with my friends, I don’t NEED my shitposting to be easily searchable on Google.

      I’m not against using Matrix, but I could only get select people to join me. Discord is where all the more tech-illiterate gamers live and sometimes I wanna hang out with them too. It’s not the same as Lemmy, where I want to talk to complete strangers, so it doesn’t matter too much if more than half a community is lost by migrating from reddit to lemmy.

    •  dan   ( @dan@upvote.au ) 
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      71 year ago

      use XMPP or Matrix.

      XMPP is mostly dead these days. The protocol is very inefficient (it’s all XML) which isn’t ideal on mobile devices since it uses more bandwidth to transfer and more processing power to parse.

      I work at a big tech company, and at work we use Mattermost hosted outside our data center for cases where our internal stuff doesn’t work. It seems fine and I think it’s open-source, but I don’t know a lot about it.

      I’ve heard about Matrix but haven’t tried it yet! Is it good?

      What about IRC?

      •  hal   ( @hal@sopuli.xyz ) 
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        31 year ago

        This couldn’t be more wrong actually.

        Xmpp is far from death. Just because many started to use matrix instead doesn’t mean it’s dead. Even though matrix is a Ressource and performance nightmare much more so than xmpp will ever be.

        I’m an IT specialist and work in IT too. I also selfhosted a lot of stuff publicly.

        XMPP is used by many companies like Facebook , Google, Nintendo, GitHub, zoom, WhatsApp, Apple etc.

        Xmpp is a an official Standard.unlikr things like matrix.

        And if you think that xmpp has battery issues.oeadays then that tells me you used any xmpp app like conversation/snikket etc. like many years ago.

        My xmpp Apps use way less battery than any matrix app ever could.

        XMPP is fast, reliable and just works. Matrix is a nightmare to selfhost, too.

        IRC? Irc has no E2EE whatsoever. Therfore isn’t even comparable to xmpp with omemo or matrix.

        •  dan   ( @dan@upvote.au ) 
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          41 year ago

          XMPP is used by many companies like Facebook , Google, Nintendo, GitHub, zoom, WhatsApp, Apple etc.

          Facebook doesn’t use XMPP; they use a custom protocol built on top of MQTT. WhatsApp was using a binary equivalent to XMPP (keeping the same stanzas but removing the XML), but I’m not sure if they still are. Do you have a source stating that the other companies use XMPP?

        • Xmpp is far from death. Just because many started to use matrix instead doesn’t mean it’s dead. Even though matrix is a Ressource and performance nightmare much more so than xmpp will ever be.

          How is matrix a performance nightmare? been running a matrix server for years with almost no issues. I guess the only exception was the few times I ran out of hdd space, but that’s it.

          Xmpp is a an official Standard.unlikr things like matrix.

          What’s an official standard? Matrix is a protocol just like xmpp and the specs are public, just like with xmpp.

          Matrix is a nightmare to selfhost, too.

          It’s literally as easy as running a docker container and editing a yaml file, at least for synapse.

          •  hal   ( @hal@sopuli.xyz ) 
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            1 year ago

            It is very well known that Synapse is a ressource hog. Heck, you can’t even enable presence because it would kill your server ressources. Why do you think almost all instances have it disabled? Cmpared to an XMPP server ressource usage, Snypase is a nightmare to host. I also hosted a public server for a long time.

            XMPP standards: https://wikiless.ftw.lol/wiki/XMPP https://xmpp.org/extensions/ https://xmpp.org/about/technology-overview/

            It’s literally as easy as running a docker container and editing a yaml file, at least for synapse.

            just like xmmp is, difference is, matrix snypse uses like 20x the amount of ressources. Just try to host a public server for more than 100 people and you will know.

            There is a reason why people make stuff like Conduit or the matrix team works on Dendrite as a new server.

        • Totally, I too think that one should prefer Element for multiple reasons (feature richness, app availability, … I mean, the web widgets absolutely rule imo), after all, it’s UI is similar to Discord/Slack but it also feels somewhat different here and there. For the first 1-2 hours it can be a bit overwhelming for newbies. Cinny’s UI is much closer to Discord’s UI, and it seems fine for chatting as far as I have tried it.

          •  Akip   ( @Akip@feddit.de ) 
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            1 year ago

            the encryption broke first just for the desktop app, later also for web browser several times, people couldn’t see what I was writing to them, all while it worked in element. I was able to create nested rooms but nobody could see them for joining… the overall experience was painful and it probably cost me my one chance to convince people to get away from discord after their policy change to record audio from calls

    • Why does everything need to be free searchable on the internet?

      Call me crazy but I don’t want my group chats publicly available on the internet. Discord feels… private. I know they have access to all the data, but it’s not like a public website, forum, or even an open irc chatroom. It’s my walled garden to chat with friends, stream games, game chat, post dumb memes, etc.

      That’s like saying signal is cancer to free and open internet. Or hell, email because it’s not indexed and searchable?

      I don’t get the sentiment.

      • people don’t just use discord for private communication, and that’s what should be searchable. also, you do realize that discord doesn’t feature any encryption and some people can read your “private” messages, right?

      •  crius   ( @crius@beehaw.org ) 
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        1 year ago

        This is not how it’s been used for the vast majority.

        Companies and big communities use it as a forum, sharing knowledge more or less important.

        For example, i dabble in modding games, nowadays i need to join a game discord server and ask there hoping that someone is kind enough to repeat for the nth time something asked already, probably several time a week.

        Most often than not, you don’t get an answer due to several factors, one of which is that if you ask when the people that can help are not online, nobody answer really.

        On a forum you could have searched your question and find some answer anyway.

        THAT is a very big problem. Knowledge is walled in and the search provided is the equivalent of digging in the sand with a spoon.

      •  hal   ( @hal@sopuli.xyz ) 
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        11 year ago

        undefined> Why does everything need to be free searchable on the internet?

        imagine everything is behind a gateway of account + phone number. you wouldn’t be here on Lemmy because you would’ve never heard about it and couldn’t search about it, or reddit etc.

        It’s not hard to get your head around why searching the internet is the most important part to get things going. You wouldn’t get ANY information if you need to get your phone number out for every single site/forum/whatever.

        And if you have no experience with Discord and how it evolved over the last years, I can’t help you. Discord already replaces many sites and forums, or give support via Discord only… now these things are no longer searchable because people somehow like to idle in Discord servers and search for things in there.

        If you can’t see the issue with this, even right now already and especially in the future if it continous like that, then I can’t help you, sorry.

        • You cherry picked one line of my post and didn’t address the entire context or intent of it. Im not defending companies or businesses using discord as a drop in replacement for forums or support pages. Imo that’s a mis use of the tech.

          I think that’s stupid.

          But discord isn’t designed for that. It’s a chat app (voice and text). I don’t want my chats with friends publicly searchable on the internet. That’s dumb. Having my emails publically searchable on the internet is dumb too.

          If a company started using Signal or Whatsapp for support, would you be clamoring for all signal and Whatsapp messages to be searchable on the internet?

          That doesn’t make any sense. You seem more upset that companies are misusing Discord than mad at Discord.

    •  nix   ( @nix@midwest.social ) 
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      41 year ago

      Are XMPP or Matrix really any more seachable? I’m all in on FOSS, clearly, but do they fix that complaint? I feel like the real solution is separating chat and longer term info, and putting the longer term info on a wiki or other public and indexable format.

  •  Fizz   ( @Fizz@lemmy.nz ) 
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    501 year ago

    This is the classic tactic of make a product free and run it at a loss until you have full market share then you can extort users for whatever.

    •  elvith   ( @elvith@feddit.de ) 
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      131 year ago

      Or as Cory Doctorow calls it - “Enshittification”. They’re now in the second stage - open the gates for other companies to market to Discord users:

      Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

      I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

      https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

    •  ezri   ( @ezri@beehaw.org ) 
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      51 year ago

      I’m confused, this changes nothing for most users. All this does is allow creators that use Patreon tiers to grant certain roles in Discord to do this entirely through Discord. If you’re not in one of these servers, this probably won’t affect you.

      Even if you are, it’s still barely a change

    • Then we’ll all run for Matrix in a few years once Discord goes full anti-consumer. As if none of us have ever been through a situation like this. Nope, never.

      …Says the guy who’s like in 50 Discord servers…Including one for friends and another for family.

      And who also pays for Nitro… =/

  •  Louise   ( @Louise@lemm.ee ) 
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    431 year ago

    I honestly don’t mind this. This is really useful for small creators in not needing to do workarounds for Patreon or Patreon roles and this makes it easier by being baked into Discord itself. I get the worry of stuff being paywalled but since it is entirely set by the server owner/creator, it would be something to take up with them instead. The 10% cut is a bit rough but I know other platforms also take a cut, but I’m not too sure if 10% is high or low. That would be my own biggest concern since it only makes sense if it is comparable or lower than other platforms like Patreon.

      • I created a Matrix account as Plan B now that the link is back in the sidebar. I was very active on Discord a few years back, but a week before joining Beehaw, I was ready to ditch it, since I can chat with my college roommate on Steam and I no longer DM with anyone else (also, all my servers from then are now dead).

        I don’t think I’m the target audience for Discord, so other than a few longstanding UI gripes, I’m kinda content to let them do whatever. Monetization won’t hit me until you have to pay to be able to send text messages.

        • I use discord for 2 things, my personal group chat with friends that I manage, and keeping up with Mechanical Keyboard artisan shops and manufacturers. So I mean it wont be a huge leap for me to migrate to something better.

    •  Dee   ( @Dee_Imaginarium@beehaw.org ) 
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      1 year ago

      The 10% cut is a bit rough but I know other platforms also take a cut, but I’m not too sure if 10% is high or low.

      I have a Patreon and their cut is about 3% there (at least for me, it varies depending on what services you use through Patreon). This is a very easy pass and the only people I see utilizing it are creators like Twitch streamers who already have a large Discord server/presence to build off of. It’s a bad deal though 10% is real rough imo.

      •  Kaldo   ( @Kaldo@beehaw.org ) 
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        11 year ago

        I imagine 7% isn’t that much of a “loss” when compared to how much larger the market on discord is and how convenient it’s going to be for these users to start spending on MTX.

        •  Dee   ( @Dee_Imaginarium@beehaw.org ) 
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          Agree to disagree then, every percentage counts and the effects of each of those percentages is exaggerated with each additional patron. 7% of one patron is negligible, 7% of three hundred patrons is huge.

          Edit: oh and the discord market is a niche market, the average person does not have a Discord and many aren’t even familiar when it’s brought up. I had a much easier time getting people to sign up for a paid Patreon than I had getting them to sign up for a free Discord account back when I was putting in the effort to grow a following on these platforms. I think it’ll be good for people who are already building on that market but for every other creator it’s an easy pass.

          •  Kaldo   ( @Kaldo@beehaw.org ) 
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            11 year ago

            But the goal isn’t to replace patreon with people that have to sign up for discord, it’s to reach people who are already on discord and aren’t funding the creator on patreon. Surely that’s a huge untapped market, discord must have millions of daily users by now. You’re not losing 7%, you are gaining 90% per each new customer obtained this way.

            •  Dee   ( @Dee_Imaginarium@beehaw.org ) 
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              Sure, discord has millions of users but they’re of a particular demographic. One that requires moderation, is typically higher maintenance, and less likely to spend money (speaking from experience from a few years back). Discord demographics skew young and young audiences spend a whole lot less than other groups. Not saying that as a knock against them, it’s just the way of it.

              But the potential to gain more is just that, potential. And comes with much more to manage. I don’t have to moderate my Patreon comments for example. I did have to actively keep out trolls and shitheads from my Discord server though. More power to any creator who wants to try and deal with that, but it’s an easy pass for me and most creators I personally know (which is primarily artists/musicians for context).

              •  Kaldo   ( @Kaldo@beehaw.org ) 
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                11 year ago

                I see, thanks for explaining. I didn’t realize you need to actually have a server with a community to sell these things, I assumed it’s just a marketplace ran by discord staff. If it requires additional work on creator’s side then I can understand the drawbacks.

  •  ezri   ( @ezri@beehaw.org ) 
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    421 year ago

    Discord has been making a lot of bad decisions lately but imo this isn’t one of them. It’s not like they’re forcing every server to setup paid channels.

    Currently, many creators have Patreons setup and allow varying levels of access to their Discord servers based on Patreon tiers. Literally all this change does is give creators the option to do this entirely through Discord rather than using Patreon.

    This is nothing new. Just a slightly different way to handle monetization.

  • I’m going to take a rather controversial stance on this. I don’t see this as such a bad Thing

    First of all, running a discord server, especially a large one is not easy and discord mods deserve to be paid for their time just as much as anyone else.

    While I will say that I’m not a huge fan of discord’s new focus on massive servers, it’s clear that that’s what brings in the big dough for them.

    If this helps discord keep the lights on, and keep small servers running that’s good for me as much as it is good for them.

    Also, I’d much rather this than ads ngl

  • So it’s just an expansion of what can be monetized within a server. I see nothing wrong with this. It even gives small indie devs like me a chance at a small revenue stream.

    If you don’t like the things a specific server is doing, leave. It’s pretty simple.

    • I have no problem paying for a service or an app if it is good and fits my needs. It’s the microtrans and battle passes that people generally have issues with. Paying for every little thing like a meme.

      • You seem to be forgetting that it is the server owner who decides these things. If you’re on a server that is monetizing memes and you don’t like it, leave.

        Monetizing memes was given as an example. A stupid example Yes but only an example.

        •  Sp00ky94   ( @Sp00ky94@lemmy.fmhy.ml ) 
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          I found the PC Gamer article a bit confusing so I read other articles and understood it better. I get it now. It’s not Discord setting these sub tiers etc. They are allowing more servers. Doesn’t sound so bad. I guess depending how much a person uses a server they are a member of, they can help support the server and receive premium benefits and Discord who gets a cut of the purchases. All optional. Not too bad as it is up to the individual servers.

          Edit: this can be a good thing and help support discord financially. So far we are lucky discord has not sold to a tech corp or gone public.

          • The thing is, between stuff like this and nitro, discord can fund itself without ads. Something like this literally helps everyone involved. If you don’t want to donate to a server, then don’t. It’s literally that simple.

            I get tired of people jumping on this bandwagon because it’s popular to hate on discord. The people that are hating on it generally are the ones who fundamentally do not understand what is going on. They read some ragebait article and instead of digging a little bit deeper in trying to understand they just take it at face value. It’s very irritating. The latest buzzword is “enshitification”, which, by itself is a good descriptor for some things but these people throw it around so liberally that it loses all significance. “Oh an app did something I don’t like and I’m not going to take the time to learn more about it <insert meme of hand smacking button labeled enshitification>”.

            Think of it this way… Discord is doing a Patreon but for discord servers. This is cool. This is neat. It hurts exactly no one and helps potentially everyone. At the most it’s a net zero effect for most users.

    • It’s the beginning of the entire platform turning to shit. Because it’s never enough money. More ads, more tracking, more locked in features.

      This is the cycle of monetization. It gives you a small revenue stream, but only until users get fed up and leave. Because it’s never enough money coming in. More more more.

  • I never understood why everyone moved to discord. Regardless of this, it actually just sucks and is hard to use. Discord really gives me hope that the fediverse will succeed, just because the UI sucks so fucking much.

    • I’m still using discord for basic party chat functions for my small group of friends. As long as that continues to work, I don’t care at all about paid memes.

      I generally hate that I have to go into other servers because indie games confuse a discord as being a replacement for forums and a wiki

      • For real. Crowdsec, a crowd sourced blocklist / basic IPS system doesnt really have a living forum. You ask question through unindexable discord threads… so often times I cant just google an issue i am having with the app. I have to open up my damn Discord account while at work to get answers.

        Its awful.

  •  Kyo_Jazz   ( @Kyo_Jazz@lemm.ee ) 
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    1 year ago

    “microtransactions” “exclusivities”. Average silicon valley update gruel. The best that comes out of this is probably competition, while i like discord basic featureset as its solid, the UI is genuinly one of the worst things i have experienced.

    •  chepox   ( @chepox@sopuli.xyz ) 
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      31 year ago

      It’s not just me then… I consider myself tech savvy and I have such a hard time finding the message that notified me. Getting back to an old message is just impossible for me.

      Well… Maybe I am getting old.

      • Dont concider yourself alone, ive theorized this “shittification” for a while now, as its partly a phenomenon partly entangled with next generation. Tech companies will cater to youth, the ones with the most engagement in online platforms. Once that company then achieves monopoly status. Youth thrives in its tribal behavior of either belonging or not. Then these companies basically have free reign try to put as much shit into it to prolong the usage and hours spend because they will know that regardless people will use it or you are out. Snapchat and new reddit UI exemplify exactly that.

  •  heady   ( @heady@beehaw.org ) 
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    191 year ago

    Now that I’ve started playing around with my own lemmy instance I guess it’s fitting for possibly my last beehaw post to reflect my first.

    I see discord’s business model is still burning cash trying to be the next slack steam zoom reddit patreon

    • Yea, I don’t have a problem with a company, whose service I use, try to sell additional services or create a paid tier that basically pays for me to use it for free.

      I like discord. The name change hubbub was…a nothing burger. If people want to pay for extra emojis or whatever for their server…cool? How does that impact me?