I think I'm mainly done with open source advocacy. Like don't get me wrong, fedi is the only social media I want, Lemmy is the only reddit I want. Our communities in working federated internet just hit different
But Signal is nowhere ready to replace Telegram, and even on it's own linking identity to phone number and making message history and sticker subscriptions irrecoverable is ridiculous. And they don't seem too interested in catching up to Telegram.
And so far nothing is capable of really replacing Discord. Steam had a good attempt but then they remembered they aren't a chat platform and stopped developing features. Riot/Ferret is a shell of what it could be. Teamspeak might be capable of penetrating the market again, but I think they're trying to leverage too much legacy code. And don't get me started on unreliable matrix.
At this point, if discord dies, it doesn't die because we've slain it. It dies because of it's gluttony having gained the ire of one too many governments or 3 letter agencies; it dies because it's undergrowth gets exposed more widely instead of on rather limited channels like NTTS. We do not have dragonslayers (in the chat app niche) and I'm tired of pretending we do.
[object Dragon]
in reply to Praxrizz • • •do you mean revolt/stoat or
Praxrizz
in reply to [object Dragon] • • •Ferret
in reply to Praxrizz • • •Praxrizz
in reply to Ferret • • •@ferret I think some changes have been made, but the encryption breaks across devices, since it's encrypted per device. In the past I've lost message history by simply switching a client. Then you have the client malaise in general, with some features being undercooked in the official client. The lack of voice chat support,,,
It's good for the places that'd otherwise use slack or MS teams, but it is not a capable replacement for discord at this point
catraxx
in reply to Praxrizz • • •What does Discord actually do which is unique? I never quite understood.
When i was still begrudgingly using it i had like 50 servers open, 48 of which were permanently silenced because i only went there for one bit of information and then never again. The rest looked and felt like a default chat client, bloated with ads.
The best argument i ever heard for Discord is "There are people there."
Praxrizz
in reply to catraxx • • •@catraxx
I got distracted, but here's the list (I think another user already hit on some of these)
Praxrizz
in reply to Praxrizz • • •catraxx
in reply to Praxrizz • • •Praxrizz
in reply to catraxx • • •@catraxx
basically anything to make sure your mods aren't abusing their perms
I've attached an un-alt-texted and anonymized example
catraxx
in reply to Praxrizz • • •Praxrizz
in reply to catraxx • • •Praxrizz
in reply to Praxrizz • • •@catraxx This example is from a private server, but you could see how this is invaluable in a place where modding is actually important, such as a public community.
Combine this with the Onboarding feature discord has long since introduced for servers (letting you select some roles or join channels) and it's hard to compete in experience matters with discord
Not that I'd know much about big communities on discord, I am subscribed to some channels for some updates (i.e. Archipelago) but I do not mingle in them. I mainly use Discord for smaller communities of <100 ppl
catraxx
in reply to Praxrizz • • •I guess the difference is the level of exposure. The data exists in matrix, too, but i think that without an additional tool it will likely not be exposed in the client itself, i'd have to check that.
It is interesting though that matrix does seem to try and match the stuff discord does.
Praxrizz
in reply to catraxx • • •James Endicott
in reply to catraxx • • •The point of Discord is that community management software, game streaming forums, image sharing, chat, polls, etc cost money to self-host. Discord allows devs and fandoms to host that for free.
It'll eventually get enshittified beyond usability but, for now, it's still free when even open source alternatives cost money. Until we get universal basic compute where a government runs basic internet infrastructure for free to their taxpayers, it'll have an audience.
Zan
in reply to James Endicott • • •@o76923 @catraxx
It'll eventually get enshittified? Hmm...
- Discord is not really "free", given you get advertised (be it actual ads, be it them shoving their shop down your throat every other day, or them making sure the first thing you see is a shiny highlight over the store tab everytime you log in) and you cannot turn any of that off unless you get a 3rd-Party Open Source Interface/Client (e.g.: Vencord);
- Discord also paywalls basic features that cost absolutely 0 to maintain, like basic customisation that even MSN had back in the day. For free.
- Forums did very much everything Discord does, except for Voice calls and file sharing: trusting a company (that is probably gonna be bought by "investors(tm)") to keep your files hosted in their servers is wishful thinking. [and before that is used as an excuse, I will pre-emptively say that it doesn't matter if you have "nothing to hide." Cool. That doesn't mean other people should follow on that logic.] (1/?)
Zan
in reply to Zan • • •@o76923 @catraxx
- Discord is also not searcheable online. GameDevs hiding their FAQs/Troubleshooting stuff/actual game files behind a server that is not publicly accessible without an account [which sometimes requires mobile verification for a user to be allowed in, or worse, "minimum account age" for an extra "f*ck you" for people who do not want to be in the eco-system in question] is bad practice. And there are many doing this, especially within RomHacks/FanGames communities. These people then proceed to get mad when people go to Forums or Reddit to ask questions they can't find an answer for online.
- There are thousands of Polls websites, many existed before Discord. Forums too.
- Forums are free.
IMO The only reason Discord is popular is because of its convenience, added to the fact most people are too lazy to learn how TeamSpeak and Forums work, and influencers/big streamers don't want the hassle. If they can't be arsed, no one will want to be arsed.
Praxrizz
in reply to Zan • • •@zanon @o76923 @catraxx The in-development version of TeamSpeak has potential, but the TS3 license system was godawful
I have no idea what TS6 licenses will look like, but you need people to be able to start communities for free, with a good amount of capacity too.
Praxrizz
in reply to Praxrizz • • •Zan
in reply to Praxrizz • • •I am basically only there due to the communities I am a part of/manage/assist in managing. This is solely because people got this idea that Discord is "the place." Everyone believes it, so it's basically here to stay unless, as you said before, it falls - which won't be happening due to boycotts. It'll take a massive scandal (or bankrupcy) for it to happen.
Sadly, and I speak from experience, it is a big ask to try and tell people to move somewhere else - communities will fragment a lot and this (in the case of Full-Time Streamers) will lead to a drop in viewers and income, which understandably, some cannot afford to experience, especially full-time streamers with a small viewership (read: under 200 viewers). So as much as it sounds great to maybe move your community somewhere, it will, realistically, never happen.
For context: I used to moderate/admin for a Twitch Partner with over 400 members. Getting 400+ people to change from Discord to [app] here is an impossible task.
Praxrizz
in reply to Zan • • •Sensitive content
@zanon The most evil thing Discord has ever done, in my book, is breaking bridges. All of these things would be viable - moving communities - if you could connect a Matrix community with a Discord community. Or any other community with a Discord community which isn't a completely different kind of service.
If we could have discord cross-posting between different chat apps, Discord would be able to bleed users gradually without breaking communities, but discord has gone to length to control bots - while still letting malicious ones thrive!
What is tiring to me is trying to be on all the platforms at the same time. One app is enough to drive me insane with all the things I have to react to, and I am asked to split my attention not just between Discord, but also Telegram and Signal and Steam and Jabber
And oh god Jabber. I know at this point this is just a rant but Jabber would have had such potential if anyone would actually drive ahead RFC. I've been following the Sticker RFC for years and there's no movement on it and it makes me want to scream
(And that is not to mention how hard it is to actually figure out HOW you can even contribute without going all over the place with distributed projects like this)
Discord sadly just works right now, and if plans fall through on one of your servers, there's another server where something is happening and you can fall back to.
🌴 Seph 💭 👾
in reply to Praxrizz • •@Praxrizz Don't get me started on Signal, I gave up on that after only a few months because of the various restrictions and glitches. Have you looked at @Delta Chat ? Seems to be spam free, though not sure if that's because of the design, or simply a matter of being small an unnoticed so far.
And for an aside, I found this thread while doing a search for #wafrn , I think #friendica 's search function is more than a little buggy.
like this
tl 🇨🇦 and Praxrizz like this.
tl 🇨🇦
in reply to 🌴 Seph 💭 👾 • • •🌴 Seph 💭 👾 likes this.
Praxrizz
Unknown parent • • •