Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else(ft.com)
ft.com
Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else
https://www.ft.com/content/7e878e72-38b2-427a-a325-6a419d9f1c88
479 comments
Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/uSlv7
I have a bad feeling about this. Discord essentially does one thing really well. I don't want to see it go down the way of so many chat platforms trying to be everything and becoming a bloated mess.
Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well. The first of many casualties, no doubt.
It makes me despair of business models which require growth to be chased at all costs. I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where they are making money, and then just keep making that much money and being ok with that.
Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well. The first of many casualties, no doubt.
It makes me despair of business models which require growth to be chased at all costs. I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where they are making money, and then just keep making that much money and being ok with that.
> Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well. The first of many casualties, no doubt.
This is funny because my impression was that Discord users by and large hated those messages.
This is funny because my impression was that Discord users by and large hated those messages.
I'm definitely in the camp of "don't patronize me with being a 'silly' corporation". I don't believe you, you're trying to make money, trying to be pals with me grosses me out.
Yeah. As the kids say, it's "peak cringe".
totes cringe fam
yeet that shit outta here
yeet that shit outta here
They should just have a separate platform mode.
Like Discord Businesses. Discord B8s.
Like Discord Businesses. Discord B8s.
They should use a different name then, because "discord" doesn't exactly conjure up images of handshakes and smiling people sitting in meeting rooms in stock photos.
Bizcord
Discord 365 For Business(tm)
Not enough Enterprise or cloud in the name, I don't know that I can get enough buy-in as-is.
And also have a cryptocurrency called Discoin because are you even a business without your own crypto in 2021?
Concord, obviously
Discord B8s = Discord Baits?
You're trying to pull a YouTube Red here?
You're trying to pull a YouTube Red here?
Nah, just the trend of the first letter + number of middle letters + last letter abbreviation scheme, like K8s for Kubernetes, and i18n for internationalization.
B8s = Business
...except then it would be B6s...unless the parent meant "Discord Businesses"?
Now I don't even know.
B8s = Business
...except then it would be B6s...unless the parent meant "Discord Businesses"?
Now I don't even know.
B - eight - s
Exactly :D
You must know a lot of people who take themselves too seriously.
Funny is relative. Personally, there was nothing humorous about those messages. I know they were trying to be funny, but it was about as funny as knock knock, who’s there?, banana!
I like humor. Humor that, you know, is funny.
I like humor. Humor that, you know, is funny.
On my open source project (https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash), there's a nyan cat that move around whenever the app takes more than 1s to load. I had quite a few companies contacting me to get rid of it
To see the nyan cat moving around your screen, you got to throttle the bandwidth: https://demo.filestash.app/
To see the nyan cat moving around your screen, you got to throttle the bandwidth: https://demo.filestash.app/
Orange you glad I didn't say banana?
There are so many different varieties of sense of humor. It varies from culture to culture, generation to generation, family to family, and person to person.
It's one thing if a joke is actually harmful, of course. But, beyond that, I'd say that denigrating someone else's way of being whimsical is a specific subspecies of taking yourself too seriously.
It's one thing if a joke is actually harmful, of course. But, beyond that, I'd say that denigrating someone else's way of being whimsical is a specific subspecies of taking yourself too seriously.
The person you are responding to did not denigrated anything.
He responded to claim that if someone does not like those messages, then he "take himself too seriously". The response simple explained that author find those jokes unfunny.
As you said, humor varies from culture to culture, generation to generation, family to family, and person to person. That implies that not liking some kind of humor is completely valid sentiment.
He responded to claim that if someone does not like those messages, then he "take himself too seriously". The response simple explained that author find those jokes unfunny.
As you said, humor varies from culture to culture, generation to generation, family to family, and person to person. That implies that not liking some kind of humor is completely valid sentiment.
There's a difference, though, between simply not liking some kind of humor, and publicly making fun of it.
I generally think that this advice is over-simplistic, but this tends to be a situation where the, "If you can't say anything nice, just don't say anything," principle really is a good rule of thumb.
It's perhaps even worse if you try to make your criticism amusing. Scalzi has a good explanation of why: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/06/16/the-failure-state-of-...
I generally think that this advice is over-simplistic, but this tends to be a situation where the, "If you can't say anything nice, just don't say anything," principle really is a good rule of thumb.
It's perhaps even worse if you try to make your criticism amusing. Scalzi has a good explanation of why: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/06/16/the-failure-state-of-...
If you insult someone for not liking the humor, it fair play from them to make fun of you back. And that comment was not making fun, it was expressing how that humor comes off.
Because what you want here is one sided "one side get to insult the other, but other is expected to not even express their opinion."
Because what you want here is one sided "one side get to insult the other, but other is expected to not even express their opinion."
I agree with you. I like Discord, but the messages felt very forced. "Hello fellow kids" style. Forced fun, if you will. I loathe forced fun. heh
Agreed.
I personally found them to be like "wow, look how hip we are young children".
I personally found them to be like "wow, look how hip we are young children".
I'll throw in my 2c and say that I thought they were just fine. I wasn't verbally guffawing at their Sims-esque loading humor but the first time I saw it I thought "oh heh they're doing the sims thing" and then literally never thought overmuch about it again.
I really don't take myself seriously at all but I find such things in software more annoying than humorous because it's distracting (the reason for me was because I have to reprogram my behaviour to ignore said loading messages rather than view them as actionable items). Streamlabs is another with stupid loading messages. Such things aren't annoying enough to stop me using their software but it certainly not something I get kick out of seeing.
I'd also add festival themed icons too. The whole VSCode trolling a few years back might have been overblown but the end result was for the better imo. I find it distracting having seasonal icons and the fewer distractions I can find in my productivity tools the better.
I'd also add festival themed icons too. The whole VSCode trolling a few years back might have been overblown but the end result was for the better imo. I find it distracting having seasonal icons and the fewer distractions I can find in my productivity tools the better.
Clever humour at the right time is great. A dumb message while I'm trying to get on with my work or hobby isn't good humour or at the right time.
Yeah. It always falls flat for me, like the "Uwu We made a fucky wucky!! A wittle fucko boingo! The code monkeys at our headquarters are working VEWY HAWD to fix this!" messages you get when some web pages break down.
A lot of times when apps try to be cute I wish they would just STFU and do the thing I want them to
The Windows 10 new user setup screen and also the frowny face crash screen come to mind.
> A lot of times
Every time. FTFY.
Every time. FTFY.
This was my impression as well.
By coincidence, I recently stumbled upon this 'Discord for Business' support post from 2018 (https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600302...) that generated almost 200 upvotes and 100 comments. I
The post starts as follows:
> My company is presently evaluating alternatives to Slack internally. Turns out, Discord is one of the most feature rich alternatives, with a relatively smooth UI and voice/video/screenshare capability. I couldn't even get half of about 10 people on the testing committee to try it.
> The reasons:
> -The logo in the tray is a video game controller
> -The home screen shows a listing of games
> -The chat bot addressed a female employee when she joined as "love"
> -Touchpoint emails aren't asking for feedback, they're talking about the journey for users to share gaming experiences
> Except the third one above, none of these are "bad" per se. And the product is really solid. There's a market there that could certainly use it as is, but perhaps an even bigger (and more lucrative one) that will be turned off to the current state. We're not moving forward with Discord because we don't feel it really has us as a high value audience. But some tweaks to modify the UI/UX to meet these differing needs based on license type may be worth exploring.
By coincidence, I recently stumbled upon this 'Discord for Business' support post from 2018 (https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600302...) that generated almost 200 upvotes and 100 comments. I
The post starts as follows:
> My company is presently evaluating alternatives to Slack internally. Turns out, Discord is one of the most feature rich alternatives, with a relatively smooth UI and voice/video/screenshare capability. I couldn't even get half of about 10 people on the testing committee to try it.
> The reasons:
> -The logo in the tray is a video game controller
> -The home screen shows a listing of games
> -The chat bot addressed a female employee when she joined as "love"
> -Touchpoint emails aren't asking for feedback, they're talking about the journey for users to share gaming experiences
> Except the third one above, none of these are "bad" per se. And the product is really solid. There's a market there that could certainly use it as is, but perhaps an even bigger (and more lucrative one) that will be turned off to the current state. We're not moving forward with Discord because we don't feel it really has us as a high value audience. But some tweaks to modify the UI/UX to meet these differing needs based on license type may be worth exploring.
Did you look into Microsoft Teams at all? Just wondering if you have a comparison to Discord. At work, I've called MS Teams "Discord for business" because to me, a long term discord user, Teams development feels very "made by people who love Discord".
Teams has better Office apps, and better integration with Microsoft things. It's also clunky and buggy.
Discord, while lacking the app and file features, is much better in terms of what it actually does. It's almost enough to make me not hate Electron (?)
Discord, while lacking the app and file features, is much better in terms of what it actually does. It's almost enough to make me not hate Electron (?)
Not using Discord but I always compile my pure-ftpd with the --without-humor and --with-boring flags. Funny is relative.
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The casual brand is great, but those loading antics are dumb. Nobody actually likes them. This is great news, Discord really, badly, needs multi account support, screen-share and video in stage channels, an alternate pricing option/model where a server can be paid for by a company or organization instead of individuals (which would remove stream quality and upload file size limits), sso support, and possibly server DMs instead of global DMs (possibly addressing associated data segregation issues). Otherwise their product already works awesome for smaller more open minded businesses. We replaced Slack with it this week and I don’t see us going back.
Also I want to point out that nothing in the article indicates a shift to b2b. It sounds more like they are going after parteon, onlyfans, consoles, twitch, etc. I just kinda assume they will develop some more mature user management and server payment options along the way.
Also I want to point out that nothing in the article indicates a shift to b2b. It sounds more like they are going after parteon, onlyfans, consoles, twitch, etc. I just kinda assume they will develop some more mature user management and server payment options along the way.
Multi-account support is extremely important. Professors at my university have started hosting accounts on Discord, and people have been unable to make second accounts without second phone numbers.
The result being that peoples personal and professional lives have started to overlap, which (naturally) results in dangerous positions for some people.
I'm especially concerned if something like disc-cool starts up again, or the data from it gets leaked. (Disc-cool was a group that used self-bots to create a database of harvested messages, letting you search up any users message history.)
The result being that peoples personal and professional lives have started to overlap, which (naturally) results in dangerous positions for some people.
I'm especially concerned if something like disc-cool starts up again, or the data from it gets leaked. (Disc-cool was a group that used self-bots to create a database of harvested messages, letting you search up any users message history.)
> multi account support
That would be great even without any business features. Some open source projects are starting to use discord and it would be nice for some users to link and use their github names and identities for these servers.
That would be great even without any business features. Some open source projects are starting to use discord and it would be nice for some users to link and use their github names and identities for these servers.
I consider that an organization use case, but yeah same difference.
> an alternate pricing option/model where a server can be paid for by a company or organization instead of individuals (which would remove stream quality and upload file size limits)
What's stopping an organization from buying multiple server boosts from a single account to unlock these features? If you need the level 3 perks, you can have a single account, owned by the organization, purchase the 30 server boosts to get there.
Or am I misunderstanding the problem?
What's stopping an organization from buying multiple server boosts from a single account to unlock these features? If you need the level 3 perks, you can have a single account, owned by the organization, purchase the 30 server boosts to get there.
Or am I misunderstanding the problem?
Nothing, it’s just somewhat roundabout and not really tailored for that scenario. For 1) the pricing model for that doesn't make sense for small teams (which IMO are most likely to adopt, for big teams it’s a deal). You need 30 server boosts to get 100mb upload limit which is $150/mo. And them that doesnt apply to DMs. And 2) the logistics don’t really work out. You need separate accounts to buy the boost. If you buy nitro for the deal it’s account bound which doesn't make tons of sense since nitro only applies to that one account. I’m not saying you cant make it work, more that it’s overly roundabout at the moment. Would just be nice to allow some org to have an account and to gift boosts to users or something to bridge the gap for small teams.
> Would just be nice to allow some org to have an account and to gift boosts to users or something to bridge the gap for small teams.
You can do that.
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020877112-N...
You can do that.
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020877112-N...
I wish that worked for the higher tier. That’s only 50mb upload and 720 video. I’d say most professionals need the higher tier.
My main recent annoyance is that they removed the mentions tab on mobile, and replaced it with some weird feature called stage (some sort of clubhouse ripoff where you do... livestreaming?)
It placed the mentions in under the search(?!?!) tab, which adds 2 clicks, and also added significant time delays sometimes when the search tab has to load for 3-10seconds........
I have a server with lots of discord "OGs" back from 2015, and it's the most complained about change that has been discussed in that server, by far.
Th thing I hate the most about the mentions-under-search bit is that it's so unintuitive. I had a couple of pings and I looked around everywhere trying to find them, and the removal of the very helpfully labelled "@" button pissed me off. I only found out the pings were under search after I read the changelog.
And for what? Discord stages are an absolute ghost town. The top ones are all "Talent shows" in bait servers. I don't mind changing UX as much as most people on HN, but changing UX to chase a fad that has already died out really grinds my gears.
And for what? Discord stages are an absolute ghost town. The top ones are all "Talent shows" in bait servers. I don't mind changing UX as much as most people on HN, but changing UX to chase a fad that has already died out really grinds my gears.
Only time I ever see stages mentioned is when they do a paid spot with a YouTuber to do one..
Problem is the tech world is changing very fast. If you're going to sit idle hoping to make the same amount of cash every year, you're going to disappear within 5-6 years. Not liking where Discord is headed either, just saying some change is necessary not only for growing, but for staying relevant.
The difference between 'keeping up in a fast-changing market' and 'failing to focus on your core market' is often only obvious with hindsight.
Google's launch of Google+ to keep up with Facebook was a huge waste of time, resources and goodwill. It had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
On the other hand, Google's acquisition of Youtube was a genius move that's massively paid back, even though it had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
So you don't just need to change to keep up - you need a specific type of change and it's not always easy to know what that is :)
Google's launch of Google+ to keep up with Facebook was a huge waste of time, resources and goodwill. It had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
On the other hand, Google's acquisition of Youtube was a genius move that's massively paid back, even though it had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
So you don't just need to change to keep up - you need a specific type of change and it's not always easy to know what that is :)
> Google's launch of Google+ to keep up with Facebook was a huge waste of time
They had Orkut, they could have used it to compete with Facebook instead of creating a new service. Its the same thing with Googles multiple chat apps.
They had Orkut, they could have used it to compete with Facebook instead of creating a new service. Its the same thing with Googles multiple chat apps.
I'm not convinced - in my friend group Discord would never have got a chance if Skype had left well enough alone and not tried to fix what wasn't broken. Instead they added more and more bloat, which created the opportunity that Discord then stepped into.
Agreed, Skype used to have much of the Swedish market until they fucked up their clients and pushed people to Facebook Messenger. Now it is irrelevant.
It's impossible to tell if Skype becoming irrelevant was due to new bloated features, new features that were badly implemented, or just that their users wanted to play with a new shinny tool that happened to be good and gradually moved there. They could have stayed put without adding any new features and would still be beaten by Discord.
This is exactly what happened to Teamspeak, they sat on their arses for ages without changing much of anything. Now it's hard to imagine them getting back any major market share in popular communities ever again. That seems like a death sentence for a social application.
There's a difference between "sitting on their arses" and "trying to grab every single customer possible".
TeamSpeak didn't bother to acknowledge that a lot of people often just want to write some messages to others without actually hopping into a channel/server, let alone a VoIP-channel. Their synchronous-only communication philosophy via community-maintained servers just didn't pan out.
TeamSpeak didn't bother to acknowledge that a lot of people often just want to write some messages to others without actually hopping into a channel/server, let alone a VoIP-channel. Their synchronous-only communication philosophy via community-maintained servers just didn't pan out.
Let's not rewrite history and pretend that Teamspeak was always terrible. Their "philosophy" panned out for a long time and made them kings of the space, but to reiterate the GP's comment: things change. Now users want more convenience. Now they want better mobile support. Now they want GIFs and reactions.
You can point out what Teamspeak didn't acknowledge as much as you like, anything is obvious in hindsight. To see what you're missing, you need to explore more and more possibilities and constantly innovate. You can bet that your current or future competition is. Prescience is not a business strategy.
You can point out what Teamspeak didn't acknowledge as much as you like, anything is obvious in hindsight. To see what you're missing, you need to explore more and more possibilities and constantly innovate. You can bet that your current or future competition is. Prescience is not a business strategy.
I would not confuse the need for further developing ones tech, with the need for growing (in employees, customers, and whatever else). A product can stay relevant, if it keeps up with the tech, but does not necessarily need to capture every possible customer on the planet, not even as a goal.
It takes significant evolution to just keep doing what you set out to do well. Running a successful mechanics business to repair cars means continuously updating your skills and tools. Eventually you become a flying car repair shop. It doesn't mean you have to grow to encompass every aspect of the automobile industry and compete with Repco and Mobil.
Except by then cars are rented to you by big advertising companies (in exchange for data), and they also do repairs (or outsource them to the lowest bidder).
Skills don't matter if your business case has disappeared.
Skills don't matter if your business case has disappeared.
Maybe that's okay.
Be THE product for half a decade, make your money, close up, next venture.
Be THE product for half a decade, make your money, close up, next venture.
That sounds horrible. We should focus on making good products that last a long time. What is the point of making something new and almost identical every 5 years?
Discord was horrible bloated software to begin with, and bloat only got worse. Nothing of value will be lost, chatting is no rocket science.
Yeah exactly!
Maybe that's why users should focus on protocols and not on Platforms.
Like Matrix.org
Maybe that's why users should focus on protocols and not on Platforms.
Like Matrix.org
And like XMPP before it.
How long did it take to upgrade from IPV4 to IPV6? IPV6 is a massively popular protocol in which virtually every technical person admitted we will need to move off of IPV4. IPV6 is 25 years old and we’re still not done with the migration.
Protocols have a massive problem with updating their feature sets and security features.
Protocols have a massive problem with updating their feature sets and security features.
> almost identical
If that were so, you would still be in business. The whole thing is products try to continuously evolve, which is what the parent is against. He/she says don't evolve so much that you become a new product. Instead shut shop when it becomes unprofitable and make a new product.
If that were so, you would still be in business. The whole thing is products try to continuously evolve, which is what the parent is against. He/she says don't evolve so much that you become a new product. Instead shut shop when it becomes unprofitable and make a new product.
Some markets don't have much more than fashion as their differentiating factor.
The point is that new generations can disrupt the market and make money too.
I wonder if discord could straight up sell/separate a 'fork' of their platform that targets a completely different audience.
The 1-size-fits-all approach to social networks never seems to work. Facebook seems to have figured it out with a clear separation of the kind of lifestyles sold by each of Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp and soon Oculus.
Product companies in general know this quite well. The way to make the (enthusiast) Supra profitable, was to build it on the same platform as the (normie) BMW Z4. The Z4 gets some of the spice of the Supra, and the Supra owners don't feel cheated out of a place in the industry. Effectively, both cars maintain the same back end, but completely different front ends. Maybe discord could do the same. If reddit was run by competent people, then they'd know to continue supporting old.reddit.com for the same reason.
Some aspects of Discord's platform are incredibly useful and class leading. However, their users are a very particular kind of internet person, and the complete un-intuitiveness of the platform highlights that. You can't preserve the 4chan-esque spastic wonder of a platform while still appealing to normies, businesses and older folks.
A platform as funny/productive as 4chan and as sanitized as Teams is the holy-grail. Alas, like all holy-grails, it seems entirely unattainable.
The 1-size-fits-all approach to social networks never seems to work. Facebook seems to have figured it out with a clear separation of the kind of lifestyles sold by each of Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp and soon Oculus.
Product companies in general know this quite well. The way to make the (enthusiast) Supra profitable, was to build it on the same platform as the (normie) BMW Z4. The Z4 gets some of the spice of the Supra, and the Supra owners don't feel cheated out of a place in the industry. Effectively, both cars maintain the same back end, but completely different front ends. Maybe discord could do the same. If reddit was run by competent people, then they'd know to continue supporting old.reddit.com for the same reason.
Some aspects of Discord's platform are incredibly useful and class leading. However, their users are a very particular kind of internet person, and the complete un-intuitiveness of the platform highlights that. You can't preserve the 4chan-esque spastic wonder of a platform while still appealing to normies, businesses and older folks.
A platform as funny/productive as 4chan and as sanitized as Teams is the holy-grail. Alas, like all holy-grails, it seems entirely unattainable.
Yeah this has been my hope too. The fact that you can’t separate the two right now is holding the platform back. I also wish for a business grade frontend that can be sold as a digital office (we have been experimenting this week with using discord as such), but in lieu of that I think simply supporting multiple accounts in the client would go a really long way. The problem is avatars are account bound so you can’t separate your work persona from your social persona, which matters when your social persona enjoys nsfw hobbies or even simply when you want a punk avatar for one and a headshot for the other. IMO having separate personas is the only way to allow the platform to retain its good qualities while expanding into markets where the masses preside. If people have to use one identity for everything then that identity becomes sterile, and Discord’s biggest success is that it fosters private communities where you can shitpost and trash talk with your close friends while breaking some sweat in <game>.
> The 1-size-fits-all approach to social networks never seems to work. Facebook seems to have figured it out with a clear separation of the kind of lifestyles sold by each of Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp and soon Oculus.
Even Facebook tried forking their own product with Campus.
https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/introducing-facebook-campu...
Even Facebook tried forking their own product with Campus.
https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/introducing-facebook-campu...
Facebook Workplace, too
> Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well.
This perception of games is pretty outdated and I assume that is what Discord has come to realize as well. Video games (and gamers) are approaching to be as varied as music (and its listeners) and the only reason they have not achieved parity yet is the difference in how long each has been around as a mass medium.
Games have intrinsic qualities that set them apart from music, movies or other mediums – but being "fun" is certainly not it, and "gamery" would, at best, serve as a tautology.
This perception of games is pretty outdated and I assume that is what Discord has come to realize as well. Video games (and gamers) are approaching to be as varied as music (and its listeners) and the only reason they have not achieved parity yet is the difference in how long each has been around as a mass medium.
Games have intrinsic qualities that set them apart from music, movies or other mediums – but being "fun" is certainly not it, and "gamery" would, at best, serve as a tautology.
> I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where they are making money, and then just keep making that much money and being ok with that.
Blame execs and CEOs and boards for not being content
Blame execs and CEOs and boards for not being content
Blame capitalism for aiming for profit, not actual service to people.
Yep, it goes one level abive execs. Execs who don't do these things get replaced! The shareholder model is broken.
What is broken about it? Did anyone tell the discord creators to involve other shareholders?
Not specific to discord, but what's broken is that work is organized to maximize personal profit of shareholders (and the remuneration and other privileges of managers), not to benefit users/society.
I'm not against people profiting from their activity, in the broad sense of the word (though i'm personally opposed to money as a tool/concept). But profit-driven social organization has lead to many avoidable disasters: security in tech, safety in buildings/planes, low durability of products and planned obsolescence, impeding ecological disaster and the next massive extinction of species...
As a species, we have enough production capacity to make sure everyone is well-off, yet a tiny minority grabs resources and ensures most of it is wasted and thrown away (see food/housing supply vs needs). Capitalism is the name of the system which holds such properties as virtuous, and it has proved to be a failed model in many regards over the centuries.
I'm not against people profiting from their activity, in the broad sense of the word (though i'm personally opposed to money as a tool/concept). But profit-driven social organization has lead to many avoidable disasters: security in tech, safety in buildings/planes, low durability of products and planned obsolescence, impeding ecological disaster and the next massive extinction of species...
As a species, we have enough production capacity to make sure everyone is well-off, yet a tiny minority grabs resources and ensures most of it is wasted and thrown away (see food/housing supply vs needs). Capitalism is the name of the system which holds such properties as virtuous, and it has proved to be a failed model in many regards over the centuries.
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Shareholder who? Why would I, a shareholder, want corporations to pursue business strategies that leads to avoidable disaster and ultimately loss of profit?
Because you'll sell before the disaster.
To who?
The greater fool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
The shareholder/investor model incentivizes "perception management" over real results.
The shareholder/investor model incentivizes "perception management" over real results.
What is the better alternative? I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit.
Note that the context of this conversation is someone blaming capitalism for Discord becoming bloated because Discord’s founders have a goal of increasing their wealth.
It seems alternatives to Discord exist for users that do not wish for this bloat, but users do not want to do the work of hosting it (e.g. teamspeak/ventrilo/matrix).
So what I am wondering is where the obligation for someone else to host these online services comes in, and why they “should” not have the goal of increasing their wealth in exchange for doing the work of hosting and servi the online services.
Note that the context of this conversation is someone blaming capitalism for Discord becoming bloated because Discord’s founders have a goal of increasing their wealth.
It seems alternatives to Discord exist for users that do not wish for this bloat, but users do not want to do the work of hosting it (e.g. teamspeak/ventrilo/matrix).
So what I am wondering is where the obligation for someone else to host these online services comes in, and why they “should” not have the goal of increasing their wealth in exchange for doing the work of hosting and servi the online services.
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> I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit.
Well first, we usually don't hear about alternative models because they're mostly erased from dominant narratives (or defaced to the point they make no sense). Famous examples include witch hunting during the renaissance and the abolition of community life (in favor of State/Church control), the Cronstadt and Ukrainian revolts in the USSR... see also "Popular history" as a research field.
Now, whether an alternative model is possible is up to debate. You use "on a large scale" as a premise, so primitivist/individualist approaches will not cut it (although they're valid ways of life for smaller communities). Have you considered the anarcho-syndicalist model? It has strong roots/history in Spain (especially in the colonized region of Catalonia) and was the heart of the popular (armed) uprising against Franco's fascist coup d'État. That is a well-documented historical experience of a large-scale agrarian/industrial (mixed) society operating on a large scale without a capitalist understanding of "profit" involved. Although to be fair it did not last long, as the revolution was eaten from within by Stalin's authoritarian clique (who had smaller numbers but considerably more weapons and resources imported from USSR, and started massacring anyone who disagreed).
We'll probably find common ground in that everyone needs to be valued for their contributions to society, which could be called "profit" in some variants of that concept. However, i would argue that not all activities need to be "profited" from (eg. arts), and that money and private property (in their capitalist interpretations, at the very least) are very bad implementations of that concept, in which a lot of people who are very useful to society are not being remunerated accordingly, while a bunch of parasite who contribute very little to society earn all the benefits.
Well first, we usually don't hear about alternative models because they're mostly erased from dominant narratives (or defaced to the point they make no sense). Famous examples include witch hunting during the renaissance and the abolition of community life (in favor of State/Church control), the Cronstadt and Ukrainian revolts in the USSR... see also "Popular history" as a research field.
Now, whether an alternative model is possible is up to debate. You use "on a large scale" as a premise, so primitivist/individualist approaches will not cut it (although they're valid ways of life for smaller communities). Have you considered the anarcho-syndicalist model? It has strong roots/history in Spain (especially in the colonized region of Catalonia) and was the heart of the popular (armed) uprising against Franco's fascist coup d'État. That is a well-documented historical experience of a large-scale agrarian/industrial (mixed) society operating on a large scale without a capitalist understanding of "profit" involved. Although to be fair it did not last long, as the revolution was eaten from within by Stalin's authoritarian clique (who had smaller numbers but considerably more weapons and resources imported from USSR, and started massacring anyone who disagreed).
We'll probably find common ground in that everyone needs to be valued for their contributions to society, which could be called "profit" in some variants of that concept. However, i would argue that not all activities need to be "profited" from (eg. arts), and that money and private property (in their capitalist interpretations, at the very least) are very bad implementations of that concept, in which a lot of people who are very useful to society are not being remunerated accordingly, while a bunch of parasite who contribute very little to society earn all the benefits.
> What is the better alternative? I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit.
Have society really taken on learned helplessness on a mass scale? In a sense that everyone has a defeatist attitude of "we can't think of any system better than current capitalism so why change?"
Or is it more probable that there are some vested interest in keeping the status quo?
Have society really taken on learned helplessness on a mass scale? In a sense that everyone has a defeatist attitude of "we can't think of any system better than current capitalism so why change?"
Or is it more probable that there are some vested interest in keeping the status quo?
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Some things that could help:
- Worker representation on company boards. Meaning that those who work on the product at an everyday level gain influence over the overall direction of the company.
- Progressive taxation of corporations to bias our economy towards small companies that are more likely to care about their users, and to encourage more competitive markets.
- Regulation to enforce interoperability and/or the ability to export data.
None of these things are about abandoning capitalist ideas entirely. There's a lot of merit to them. But they are about tweaking them to that power doesn't solely lie with money and is diluted with power from other sources.
- Worker representation on company boards. Meaning that those who work on the product at an everyday level gain influence over the overall direction of the company.
- Progressive taxation of corporations to bias our economy towards small companies that are more likely to care about their users, and to encourage more competitive markets.
- Regulation to enforce interoperability and/or the ability to export data.
None of these things are about abandoning capitalist ideas entirely. There's a lot of merit to them. But they are about tweaking them to that power doesn't solely lie with money and is diluted with power from other sources.
Those are all interesting and viable proposition, but I would not say they have any relation to the “shareholder model” as you called it in your first post I responded to. All of those proposals, and shareholders, seem like they can co exist.
consumer co-op* (owners are the customers) might be an alternative
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers'_co-operative
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers'_co-operative
It's not shareholders that I have a problem with, it's giving shareholders exclusive control of companies. They may seem like small tweaks, but you end up with a very different model.
Exactly. It's like game balance: you can have a game scenario where there's an exploit, and everyone ends up simply going with the exploit or being crushed, causing the game to become simplified to an uninteresting, uninvolving mechanical process whereupon it just dies, because it's no fun. There are a few people who think they are the big winners because they're the masters of the exploit, but they're whales in a tiny pond and are themselves stifled by how dead their environment is, and may themselves die off, still being the biggest whale in the drying-up pond, and insisting they've mastered everything that matters.
That, but capitalism.
That, but capitalism.
I don't know about Discord specifically, but what is broken is that the people who have ultimate control of large public companies (in 90% of cases - founder controlled companies are a prominent exception) are the shareholders. And these are typically not domain experts, their main interest is in making money. So they generally see fit to appoint executives whose main objective is to make money and to remove those who care about anything else.
Now, you might think that this still aligns shareholder incentives with the long-term interests of the company, that if the shareholders care about profits over the long term then they should also care about the health of the business rather than just about how much money they are making now. The problem is that the most efficient way for investors to make money (per unit time) is not to care about the long term and instead to "pump and dump" companies by directing them towards (usually destructive) activities that increase profits in the short term, then selling the shares before the value inevitably crashes.
Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time. As such, the system is setup to give power to those who are most destructive to real value creation. Ergo: broken.
Now, you might think that this still aligns shareholder incentives with the long-term interests of the company, that if the shareholders care about profits over the long term then they should also care about the health of the business rather than just about how much money they are making now. The problem is that the most efficient way for investors to make money (per unit time) is not to care about the long term and instead to "pump and dump" companies by directing them towards (usually destructive) activities that increase profits in the short term, then selling the shares before the value inevitably crashes.
Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time. As such, the system is setup to give power to those who are most destructive to real value creation. Ergo: broken.
> but what is broken is that the people who have ultimate control of large public companies (in 90% of cases - founder controlled companies are a prominent exception) are the shareholders. And these are typically not domain experts, their main interest is in making money. So they generally see fit to appoint executives whose main objective is to make money and to remove those who care about anything else.
What alternatives are there?
> Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time.
The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
What alternatives are there?
> Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time.
The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
> What alternatives are there?
Worker representation on boards is one example. Imagine if the board of public companies was 50% shareholders and 50% workers.
> The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
The most profitable companies yes, but not necessarily the ones making the most money for their investors. Part of this pattern is that the companies typically end up dying a slow and painful death, meaning that they never get to be as big as the largest companies. But money in investing is made on change in value/profits, not on profits themselves.
I guess I would say that the pattern I have described doesn't describe the entire economy. There is more traditional long-term investing going on too. But it's there. And it's harmful.
Worker representation on boards is one example. Imagine if the board of public companies was 50% shareholders and 50% workers.
> The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
The most profitable companies yes, but not necessarily the ones making the most money for their investors. Part of this pattern is that the companies typically end up dying a slow and painful death, meaning that they never get to be as big as the largest companies. But money in investing is made on change in value/profits, not on profits themselves.
I guess I would say that the pattern I have described doesn't describe the entire economy. There is more traditional long-term investing going on too. But it's there. And it's harmful.
Workers have their own interests that are not necessarily aligned with those of the users/society, such as support working hours only from nine to five on business days, higher pensions and fewer new hires, more job security.
If you really want to align the interests of the company with those of the users, you need something like a cooperative where the users are also the shareholders and you have to buy a membership to use the product.
If you really want to align the interests of the company with those of the users, you need something like a cooperative where the users are also the shareholders and you have to buy a membership to use the product.
I don't want to align the interests of the company with users. I want to align them with society. And I think it's worth noting that members of society are not just users but also workers.
> Workers have their own interests that are not necessarily aligned with those of the users/society
Usually you will find that they are, because workers are also users and vice-versa.
> support working hours only from nine to five on business days, higher pensions and fewer new hires, more job security
I guess you're from the US? "Higher pensions" should have nothing to do with a company: that's a public policy matter and pensions can be mutualized across employers as is the case in France (despite past & present governments doing their best to dismantle that public service).
The 8h workday is established minimum standard across industries for over a century now (several centuries in some industries/places), and even when it was not (see Haymarket affair) it was considered a pretty weak/useless demand, more symbolic than anything. Thinkers of the time advocated that given the established technological progress at the time, it should be possible for everyone to work just a few weeks every year and still enjoy modern comfort. Some more modern thinkers believe the same applies today, considering how many resources/efforts are wasted annually.
Moreover, "fewer new hires" is not necessarily correlated to "more job security". It may be true on the scale of a single company, but on the scale of a whole society, a public policy of everyone finding opportunity for their contributions to humanity (that rarely yet sometimes overlaps with what's called a "job") leads to better "job security" for everyone and anyone.
If a government really wanted to tackle unemployment, there's many areas of life that need considerably more workers and resources, including education & health which are pillars of a healthy (pun intended) society. But capitalist policy is to generate misery in order to pit everyone against everyone else so a tiny minority can profit... and in this regard, capitalism works excellently.
> you need something like a cooperative where the users are also the shareholders and you have to buy a membership to use the product
That's how many non-profit organizations operate. You have to be a member (free or < 20€/year) to benefit from services provided by the association.
Usually you will find that they are, because workers are also users and vice-versa.
> support working hours only from nine to five on business days, higher pensions and fewer new hires, more job security
I guess you're from the US? "Higher pensions" should have nothing to do with a company: that's a public policy matter and pensions can be mutualized across employers as is the case in France (despite past & present governments doing their best to dismantle that public service).
The 8h workday is established minimum standard across industries for over a century now (several centuries in some industries/places), and even when it was not (see Haymarket affair) it was considered a pretty weak/useless demand, more symbolic than anything. Thinkers of the time advocated that given the established technological progress at the time, it should be possible for everyone to work just a few weeks every year and still enjoy modern comfort. Some more modern thinkers believe the same applies today, considering how many resources/efforts are wasted annually.
Moreover, "fewer new hires" is not necessarily correlated to "more job security". It may be true on the scale of a single company, but on the scale of a whole society, a public policy of everyone finding opportunity for their contributions to humanity (that rarely yet sometimes overlaps with what's called a "job") leads to better "job security" for everyone and anyone.
If a government really wanted to tackle unemployment, there's many areas of life that need considerably more workers and resources, including education & health which are pillars of a healthy (pun intended) society. But capitalist policy is to generate misery in order to pit everyone against everyone else so a tiny minority can profit... and in this regard, capitalism works excellently.
> you need something like a cooperative where the users are also the shareholders and you have to buy a membership to use the product
That's how many non-profit organizations operate. You have to be a member (free or < 20€/year) to benefit from services provided by the association.
> Usually you will find that they are, because workers are also users and vice-versa.
I am sure that the owners and managers of Discord are also Discord users themselves, so I don't see any difference here.
> The 8h workday is established minimum standard across industries for over a century now An 8-hour workday does not rule out employees working shifts so that customers don't have to take a day off to interact with the company.
My point is that, contrary to OP's assumption, the interests of workers and customers are often at odds with each other. Another example would be when more employees are needed to meet increased demand, but the employees do not want their votes and wages to be diluted by the new hires.
I am sure that the owners and managers of Discord are also Discord users themselves, so I don't see any difference here.
> The 8h workday is established minimum standard across industries for over a century now An 8-hour workday does not rule out employees working shifts so that customers don't have to take a day off to interact with the company.
My point is that, contrary to OP's assumption, the interests of workers and customers are often at odds with each other. Another example would be when more employees are needed to meet increased demand, but the employees do not want their votes and wages to be diluted by the new hires.
> the interests of workers and customers are often at odds with each other
I've never heard any such stories from an actual workers coop. I'm not saying it can't exist from a theoretical perspective, but i don't think workers/users interests are "often at odds" since i can't think of a single real-life example.
I've never heard any such stories from an actual workers coop. I'm not saying it can't exist from a theoretical perspective, but i don't think workers/users interests are "often at odds" since i can't think of a single real-life example.
> Worker representation on boards is one example. Imagine if the board of public companies was 50% shareholders and 50% workers.
You are free to found a company with such a board structure. You are also free to either bootstrap it or crowdsource the necessary capital for it.
You are free to found a company with such a board structure. You are also free to either bootstrap it or crowdsource the necessary capital for it.
I'm also free to give all of my money away to the poor, but that's not going to help solve poverty in any major way because my influence on society as an individual is limited. There can be a much greater benefit in coercing everyone to follow a rule that isn't realised by allowing individuals to choose something.
> Worker representation on boards is one example. Imagine if the board of public companies was 50% shareholders and 50% workers.
Sure, that is an interesting option. But what about Discord, since it is not public? Does anyone that starts a business have to give half of the decision making power to workers from day 1?
I cannot parse the concept you are trying to explain in your second paragraph.
Sure, that is an interesting option. But what about Discord, since it is not public? Does anyone that starts a business have to give half of the decision making power to workers from day 1?
I cannot parse the concept you are trying to explain in your second paragraph.
> Does anyone that starts a business have to give half of the decision making power to workers from day 1?
It could be mandated by law, indeed. Or the shareholding model could be outright removed because it's poison for society as a whole, as the history of workers/consumers coops shows.
It could be mandated by law, indeed. Or the shareholding model could be outright removed because it's poison for society as a whole, as the history of workers/consumers coops shows.
Nothing stops workers right now to buy shares and appoint someone to the board.
On the contrary, something very obvious stops workers from buying enough shares to appoint someone to the board: access to capital. What you say is true in theory, I suppose, but is far from true in practice for any reasonably-sized publicly-traded company. How can an average worker at Walmart practically voice any opinion via shares?
>What alternatives are there?
Just spitballing, but an independent auditor that puts a dollar value on the expected long term gains/losses to a company's brand portfolio based on recent management decisions could help reduce certain types of short-term "cashing in" behaviour.
>The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
Maybe not the largest companies, but he's basically described the default behaviour of private equity firms.
Just spitballing, but an independent auditor that puts a dollar value on the expected long term gains/losses to a company's brand portfolio based on recent management decisions could help reduce certain types of short-term "cashing in" behaviour.
>The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
Maybe not the largest companies, but he's basically described the default behaviour of private equity firms.
You're welcome to start your own altruistic chat service for the people, if you'd like.
I know a lot of people who do that using IRC/XMPP/Matrix protocols, and contribute to the joinjabber.org website. That i'm free not to exploit people is not the point, the point is that nobody should be "free" (in capitalist newspeak) to exploit other people.
Capitalism has done an exceptional job though for instant messaging. Discord is an incredible bit of software and through just being better, it has won the market.
It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working.
It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working.
> It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working.
Yet most times across all fields, better technical approaches are shutdown due to misaligned economic incentives. So while this is an example of the market working, its fame is due to going against the trend of profitable crappy engineering and planned obsolescence that plague industries.
EDIT: We could also argue that accounting for "privacy" and "autonomy", Discord is not a good solution to the group communications problem and therefore the market is not working.
Yet most times across all fields, better technical approaches are shutdown due to misaligned economic incentives. So while this is an example of the market working, its fame is due to going against the trend of profitable crappy engineering and planned obsolescence that plague industries.
EDIT: We could also argue that accounting for "privacy" and "autonomy", Discord is not a good solution to the group communications problem and therefore the market is not working.
> the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal".
It may be worse for you, but it feels way better to me. It has been very annoying to introduce Discord in work/casual settings and see it labelled as "a gamer thing". Right call by Discord.
It may be worse for you, but it feels way better to me. It has been very annoying to introduce Discord in work/casual settings and see it labelled as "a gamer thing". Right call by Discord.
I use discord only for gaming but the entire app was full of text strings that made me cringe. I'm glad they have got rid of them.
It didn't matter to me that half of the loading messages weren't funny. I could tell from the moment I opened the app that they understood who I was and why I was there. I was there to have fun, and they got me. Now they have started the journey to be all things to all people, and I will not be surprised if they end up as nothing to anyone.
You had fun because of a little bit of stupid jokes during loading?
Did that define your experience, or was you experience defined by what you did inside of discord after the loading screen had passed?
Why is all this bullshit important to people? Dumb gifs, emoticons everywhere, wannabe cute gamey jokes.
If you get invited to a whine tasting party with a bunch of boring stuck up people, but there is a kids-ball-pool thingie in the entrance, is the party awesome?
Did that define your experience, or was you experience defined by what you did inside of discord after the loading screen had passed?
Why is all this bullshit important to people? Dumb gifs, emoticons everywhere, wannabe cute gamey jokes.
If you get invited to a whine tasting party with a bunch of boring stuck up people, but there is a kids-ball-pool thingie in the entrance, is the party awesome?
> Why is all this bullshit important to people?
For the same reason some people will prefer Chuck-E-Cheese vs. a more conventional family restaurant with broader appeal.
For the same reason some people will prefer Chuck-E-Cheese vs. a more conventional family restaurant with broader appeal.
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Do you have a few examples, for someone who's never used Discord?
https://i.imgur.com/dy13lcm.png
The entire app was full of crap like this - it's not funny or quirky, it's practically baby talk.
The entire app was full of crap like this - it's not funny or quirky, it's practically baby talk.
That's pretty cringy indeed, though i must say i laughed at the idea of a program snuggling into my systray :)
Not sure how well that would localize in other languages though. Thanks for the examples!
Not sure how well that would localize in other languages though. Thanks for the examples!
> Not sure how well that would localize in other languages though. Thanks for the examples!
Not well at all. Making it even more cringe worthy
Not well at all. Making it even more cringe worthy
why is calling yourself a "good boy" twice so much more unsettling than doing it once?
One "good boy" and you're talking about puppies. Three "good boys" and now you've entered the realm of BDSM.
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What the hell lol.
At least they didn't reference tendies
>>It makes me despair of business models which require growth to be chased at all costs.
It's a general approach seen here on HN. Unless a company is growing every year by 10% or more, it's a failure. Like.....what's wrong with just making few million dollars a year for years, without taking a billion dollar investment and growing into the stratosphere?
It's a general approach seen here on HN. Unless a company is growing every year by 10% or more, it's a failure. Like.....what's wrong with just making few million dollars a year for years, without taking a billion dollar investment and growing into the stratosphere?
In chat app this is not so much an option because network effects. Nobody will use 17 chat app with a different for each thing, only 4 or 5.
Discord has done some shady stuff for quite some time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/coo3h6/discord_use...
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/coo3h6/discord_use...
Discord enumerates processes to discover OBS to turn on streamer mode, as well as being able to display what game you're playing. Disable the "share my current game" feature and there is no longer any ptracing
Are you absolutely sure that's the case? The OP in that reddit post seemed to suggest that he had toggled off game detection and whatnot. Scroll down to the thread where the deleted comments are.
It's proprietary software. You can't prove it goes off. And there's both history and evidence that things are going against user privacy.
I use Discord in a web browser for these reasons. The web sandbox has benefits.
Does the web version work on mobile?
I recall Slack's web app working on my tablet, but I think they may have disabled that now.
I recall Slack's web app working on my tablet, but I think they may have disabled that now.
The one thing it does really well is getting personal user data and metadata while convincing people to defend it.
I'd say it does more than one thing well, but yeah it's always sad to see every company chase forever growth and often ruin their core product in doing so.
> I have a bad feeling about this. Discord essentially does one thing really well. I don't want to see it go down the way of so many chat platforms trying to be everything and becoming a bloated mess.
IRC does one thing and does it well. Discord is the bloated mess.
IRC does one thing and does it well. Discord is the bloated mess.
No, IRC does one thing and does it poorly. I love IRC for the great communities it has spawned but there are many issues with IRC including how you must have an IRC bouncer.
It's always worked for me. I've never used a bouncer. Maybe the "one thing" is not what you think it is. Think of it like a real room. When you're in the room you hear what's going on. When you're not, you don't.
Turns out most people don't like that idea, and appreciate chat history.
> IRC does one thing and does it well.
Unfortunately, the one thing that it does well (chat, and nothing else) is supported by a dozen things that it does terribly, and support for them has been hacked on top of the chat features in most places.
Bouncers, persistency, rich media (youtube/twitter/image embeds come to mind), mobile accessibility, presence, the ease of channel ownership... these are all things that IRC lacks. Users don't want to switch from their chat app to their imaging sharing app to send a friend a picture inline. IRC works great where people are willing to put in the work to make it great for themselves individually, but the people Discord appeals to aren't really like that.
Unfortunately, the one thing that it does well (chat, and nothing else) is supported by a dozen things that it does terribly, and support for them has been hacked on top of the chat features in most places.
Bouncers, persistency, rich media (youtube/twitter/image embeds come to mind), mobile accessibility, presence, the ease of channel ownership... these are all things that IRC lacks. Users don't want to switch from their chat app to their imaging sharing app to send a friend a picture inline. IRC works great where people are willing to put in the work to make it great for themselves individually, but the people Discord appeals to aren't really like that.
If Discord just solved some of IRCs problems I'd be with it. But it's such a regression. I don't want to run another browser process just for chat. I don't want to see people's pictures (on IRC, everyone is equal). I don't want embedded videos or childish stickers or anything else.
Are you kidding? IRC doesn’t let you update or remove your messages, doesn’t have a permanent history, doesn’t even properly handle accounts and chan owners, doesn’t support any kind of rich text by itself, has netsplits, … what does it do well exactly?
The protocol is simple and I had fun speaking on IRC through telnet when I was younger but that’s about the only good thing I have to say about it
You mentioned many things. IRC does one thing. I don't want any of that stuff. Netsplits aren't a huge problem. I'd rather have that than a centralised system that does down all at once.
> It makes me despair of business models which require growth to be chased at all costs. I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where they are making money, and then just keep making that much money and being ok with that.
I really wish anti-capitalist sentiment would grow louder in IT. This is pretty much capitalist critique 101. Companies chasing profit are often blind not only to the negative effects of their businesses, but even to the needs of their customers.
It's extremely difficult for companies to stay content in their current business model without growing. If the company is not willing to be sold to a larger company, a larger company (often FAANG) will pump nearly limitless capital into building a free competitor that will eat your userbase. This happens over and over again, so it's not very practical to just say "companies should stay where they are good at". The system disincentivizes this, and companies staying still will always get knocked down.
We need a systemic change.
I really wish anti-capitalist sentiment would grow louder in IT. This is pretty much capitalist critique 101. Companies chasing profit are often blind not only to the negative effects of their businesses, but even to the needs of their customers.
It's extremely difficult for companies to stay content in their current business model without growing. If the company is not willing to be sold to a larger company, a larger company (often FAANG) will pump nearly limitless capital into building a free competitor that will eat your userbase. This happens over and over again, so it's not very practical to just say "companies should stay where they are good at". The system disincentivizes this, and companies staying still will always get knocked down.
We need a systemic change.
> blind to the needs of their customers
Idk, one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers. Sometimes that means replacing one customer with another whos willing to pay more.
Idk, one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers. Sometimes that means replacing one customer with another whos willing to pay more.
> one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers
Which often isn't the case.
Companies have lots of priorities that have nothing to do with end users at all. For example:
- it does not matter how good your product is, if your company dies because there's a competitor that does not need to make profit and can temporarily offer their services for free, until your company is driven out of the market
- dark patterns are well documented examples how working directly against good user experience can increase profits
- lobbying politicians to drive out competition is extremely profitable, and does not take interests of the userbase into account at all
There are probably numerous other, obvious examples how capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system.
The correlation between user experience and profitability is shaky at best. One could argue that user experience has almost nothing to with how businesses operate.
Which often isn't the case.
Companies have lots of priorities that have nothing to do with end users at all. For example:
- it does not matter how good your product is, if your company dies because there's a competitor that does not need to make profit and can temporarily offer their services for free, until your company is driven out of the market
- dark patterns are well documented examples how working directly against good user experience can increase profits
- lobbying politicians to drive out competition is extremely profitable, and does not take interests of the userbase into account at all
There are probably numerous other, obvious examples how capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system.
The correlation between user experience and profitability is shaky at best. One could argue that user experience has almost nothing to with how businesses operate.
> capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system.
If there is a system, people will try to game it. Whether in capitalism or communism or any other system of rules.
If there is a system, people will try to game it. Whether in capitalism or communism or any other system of rules.
Of course. But I'm talking about being rewarded due to inherent rewards associated in the system by gaming it. There is a difference between a system that punishes bad behavior vs. a system that rewards it.
different systems will punish / reward different kinds of bad behaviour so its tit for tat. the only system that could uniformly punish bad behaviour and reward good would be one controlled by a god like being.
No system is perfect, of course, but I do think the people need a stronger democratic voice. A few big consolidated megacorporations make countless non-democratic decisions that affect huge amounts of people. Companies having are too much power in our society, considering that their motives mainly with the shareholders, not the population as a whole. I think we could at least do a bit better on it, even if its through slow reforms. Politics is probably complicated enough subject that I doubt we'll ever be perfect at it, but at least we could do a better job in mitigating their worst behaviours through legislation? I mean, the ultra-rich don't even pay any taxes, how fair is that?
I have the same feeling.
If they succeed, they will become Slack 2. If they don't, they will sink their ship.
If they succeed, they will become Slack 2. If they don't, they will sink their ship.
> If they don't, they will sink their ship.
Why would gamers stop using it?
Why would gamers stop using it?
Because Discord will probably compromise the existing product in order to try and grow.
That’s why I use basecamp - they’re explicit and clear about staying small and profitable enough, with zero ambition for infinite growth.
The company I work use basecamp and I love it!
The only thing I wish it had is subcomments like slack.
What are subcomments - nested comments?
Discord doesn't even do its one thing all that well.
The client is buggy and slow.
It makes the terrible, lazy choice of blanking the window when it has a connectivity problem.
Non-standard for-pay emojis are a terrible idea. Text should be copyable, by everyone, exactly as it is.
It's not the worst among the current stable of chat solutions. I would give that award to Teams, because wow, Teams fails in just about every way, it's a spectacle really.
Each day, I am a bit surprised at how all of the major platforms fall short of expectations, because superficially it seems like a pretty tractable problem space.
The client is buggy and slow.
It makes the terrible, lazy choice of blanking the window when it has a connectivity problem.
Non-standard for-pay emojis are a terrible idea. Text should be copyable, by everyone, exactly as it is.
It's not the worst among the current stable of chat solutions. I would give that award to Teams, because wow, Teams fails in just about every way, it's a spectacle really.
Each day, I am a bit surprised at how all of the major platforms fall short of expectations, because superficially it seems like a pretty tractable problem space.
> Non-standard for-pay emojis are a terrible idea. Text should be copyable, by everyone, exactly as it is.
I agree from a moral standpoint but because of the general use of emoji in servers, it really doesn't prove to be that much of an issue. People also enjoy using their own emoji, which is generally good for communities.
I think you'll find that as users find platforms to coalesce and try and build communities on, they'll want those customizations. Being able to use them anywhere on the platform is just a bonus - unpaid users can still use those emoji within the servers they come from.
I agree from a moral standpoint but because of the general use of emoji in servers, it really doesn't prove to be that much of an issue. People also enjoy using their own emoji, which is generally good for communities.
I think you'll find that as users find platforms to coalesce and try and build communities on, they'll want those customizations. Being able to use them anywhere on the platform is just a bonus - unpaid users can still use those emoji within the servers they come from.
Growth and change is why they exist. Its why they might replace things in other sectors and so make those sectors better.
Its why they might fail and make things worse, at which point, it is why someone else will come along to try and make things better.
Sometimes things are best left alone, but if this is attempted generally, then it'll probably lead to a stagnant pond, rather than a pleasant lake. Fresh flowing water is key.
Also, not sure how many agree with you on the cutesy humour. Maybe, it was just time for that to go.
Its why they might fail and make things worse, at which point, it is why someone else will come along to try and make things better.
Sometimes things are best left alone, but if this is attempted generally, then it'll probably lead to a stagnant pond, rather than a pleasant lake. Fresh flowing water is key.
Also, not sure how many agree with you on the cutesy humour. Maybe, it was just time for that to go.
What does discord do really well? I’ve had channels mysteriously become inaccessible until whoever posted something deletes it. The “stay on top” feature for watching a stream never seems to work very well. For some stupid reason, chat and streams aren’t integrated, so you have to chat in an associated channel which is different from where you’re watching the stream. All kinds of icons are hidden until you happen to mouse over them, which is objectively bad design. If you receive an @ and the chat continues on significantly before you see it, clicking on that channel doesn’t take you to the mention, but rather some other, seemingly random location in chat history (sometimes I don’t find it and just give up).
Discord doesn’t seem to do anything well except sign users up quickly.
Discord doesn’t seem to do anything well except sign users up quickly.
There are UX quirks to solve for sure but those are entirely solvable. Discord does private audio chat really well.
Honest question here. What is so good about discord? It reminds me more if IRC than a modern chat app. I really don't get it. Maybe I am missing something?
Voice, video and text chat with unlimited bandwidth, streaming resolution and storage space all for free, and all much, _much_ easier to use for the average user than any other voice and video communication client ever made.
If you take any investment money, then you're beholden to investors and investors want growth.
> and becoming a bloated mess
too late
too late
What does it do well? I'm genuinely asking.
Voice chat. It is superior to any other platform on this aspect other than TeamSpeak. We regularly have 40+ people in voice channels without people suffering from connection issues, bad audio quality, and lot's of noise.
Ah, good to know. That's indeed something I haven't considered at all.
I’ve used discord for a long time and greatly prefer it to slack, teams and Mattermost (the three competitors I’ve used most often). Ironically the only think stopping me from strongly advocating for its adoption in business is that I’m already a user!
Much like GitHub and to a lesser extent teams, they seem to not get the idea that I have different personas related to different parts of my life that absolutely should not mix.
If I could stay logged into my social discord servers with my gamer handle and be being logged into work servers with work handles, especially on mobile, they would gain traction I think. Add active directory account management as a paid option and would be an easy sell some places.
Much like GitHub and to a lesser extent teams, they seem to not get the idea that I have different personas related to different parts of my life that absolutely should not mix.
If I could stay logged into my social discord servers with my gamer handle and be being logged into work servers with work handles, especially on mobile, they would gain traction I think. Add active directory account management as a paid option and would be an easy sell some places.
> Much like GitHub and to a lesser extent teams, they seem to not get the idea that I have different personas related to different parts of my life that absolutely should not mix.
This. It's pretty much impossible to run several identities on Discord. If we ever move work to it i want it separate from my gaming discords.
This. It's pretty much impossible to run several identities on Discord. If we ever move work to it i want it separate from my gaming discords.
I don't understand why is it impossible to run several identities? I have one account for work and one personal account for gaming. It is possible for me and I did not have any issues.
I assume you use workarounds like separate browsers/browser groups/1 in browser 1 in app. In slack for example, you can have completely separate accounts that you control through the same window/app and I haven't seen the option for that in Discord.
I just use Firefox containers here. One tab in one container for personal, one tab in one container for more professional contexts. Having container tabs rather than private mode or separate browsers lets me have them in one window.
Yeah, you basically have multiple different browser identities that you use as a workaround since Discord doesn't support multiple identities "natively" in their own platform.
So, we're right back to where this conversation started, that Discord doesn't support multiple identities.
So, we're right back to where this conversation started, that Discord doesn't support multiple identities.
A workaround with Firefox container tabs is too complex to bother. Not to mention it doesn't work on mobile?
Edit: and besides, I am the potential customer. They want business use, they should help. I don't even understand why I'm allowed one gaming identity.
Edit: and besides, I am the potential customer. They want business use, they should help. I don't even understand why I'm allowed one gaming identity.
I have to agree with this. I find discord better than slack and I don't want to mix my gaming life with work.
> I have different personas related to different parts of my life that absolutely should not mix
Looks like the only one who support this is Telegram. Might be because they (supposedly) don't mine your data.
Looks like the only one who support this is Telegram. Might be because they (supposedly) don't mine your data.
I am curious now can you explain more? As far as I know Telegram requires a unique phone number for every account on registration.
It does require a phone number to make an account, which makes actually creating multiple accounts a huge pain, but bizarrely enough once you have the account set up you can log into as many of them as you like in their mobile app (I don't think any of their 3(!) web apps support it though, but that's not hard to work around with containers). In comparison discord makes setting up multiple accounts easy but the app has no concept of this so it's a pain to manage (I don't know of a good way to have two instances of it logged into different accounts).
Yes, you register your work account with your work number and your personal account with your private one.
Telegram clients support multiple active sessions with multiple accounts, you can switch between them easily and receive notifications from all accounts.
Telegram clients support multiple active sessions with multiple accounts, you can switch between them easily and receive notifications from all accounts.
Discord now lets you change your username and avatar per server. Though to have a different avatar on different servers you need nitro.
Still doesn't solve the problem. In Discord you only have one account, loose access to that account for some reason, you loose access to both private and work related matters.
Instead, if Discord want to be taken seriously, need to allow multiple accounts on the same device, so people can switch between things.
Instead, if Discord want to be taken seriously, need to allow multiple accounts on the same device, so people can switch between things.
Sorry for this, it doesn't add to the conversation but it's lose*. Not loose, lose.
People can still click your name and view your account name#number. They can also view mutual servers and friends. I don't necessarily want people in two communities to know or care that I am the same person.
I'm by default a private person, I feel uneasy sharing my preferences with people (even basic things like music that I like) and I don't like these broadcasted social features. The first thing I did when installing Discord was turning off the feature that says what game I am playing.
I'm by default a private person, I feel uneasy sharing my preferences with people (even basic things like music that I like) and I don't like these broadcasted social features. The first thing I did when installing Discord was turning off the feature that says what game I am playing.
As far as I know this is still in A/B testing as well, and not a fully rolled out feature. I've had a friend with it for the better part of the year, yet I have yet to get the option on any of my servers.
And that's why you want federated, pseudonymous networks and not a centralized walled gardens who gets to decide who you are and what you can do.
I've switched to Jami and was pleasantly surprised that I was be able to create multiple accounts in seconds. You can even have a video conference between your multiple accounts!
It's now my first choice chat app, but there's no social features so it's nowhere near a full replacement for Discord.
It's now my first choice chat app, but there's no social features so it's nowhere near a full replacement for Discord.
> Much like GitHub and to a lesser extent teams, they seem to not get the idea that I have different personas related to different parts of my life that absolutely should not mix.
I think there are quite other social networks that tried to retain the "universal identity" idea while completely and entirely missing this point.
I think there are quite other social networks that tried to retain the "universal identity" idea while completely and entirely missing this point.
Do you mean on the web? You should use separate browser profiles for home and work.
(Speaking generally. I haven’t used Discord, but I don’t trust websites to keep multiple logins straight.)
Similarly for mobile, look into keeping apps separate at the OS level or carry two phones.
(Speaking generally. I haven’t used Discord, but I don’t trust websites to keep multiple logins straight.)
Similarly for mobile, look into keeping apps separate at the OS level or carry two phones.
I've thought exactly this for years now and I'm so surprised nothing has happened.
Every single Discord-related post here I see comments about the "bad ux".
I'm a heavy Discord user and I have no complaints with the UX, I find it pretty intuitive to be honest.
I'm also constantly seeing people in shock that people would choose to use Discord over IRC/Matrix/Teamspeak/Mumble. I find Discord to be light years ahead of anything else available, and for an average person who's going to have a hard time setting up any of those, the difference is even bigger. Plus, Discord's free, you don't have to host it, and all your friends and communities are already there. It's really a no brainer for most people.
I'm also constantly seeing people in shock that people would choose to use Discord over IRC/Matrix/Teamspeak/Mumble. I find Discord to be light years ahead of anything else available, and for an average person who's going to have a hard time setting up any of those, the difference is even bigger. Plus, Discord's free, you don't have to host it, and all your friends and communities are already there. It's really a no brainer for most people.
What's intuitive about having to click one of the tiniest buttons in a corner of the screen to disconnect voice chat? I literally killed the process a couple times when I started using Discord because I couldn't find it. Why can I double-click to join a channel but not leave with any UI in the same area?
It also took me a while to figure out how to quit the damn thing. The only way seems to be right-clicking the tray icon. Which is nice as long as you have a tray in the first place. Having a "File > Quit" menu wouldn't have hurt. Or a button in the same menu that lets me log out and disable the account.
And judging by the fan noise in my laptop the Discord app seems to be a heavier burden than my Firefox session with over 1000 tabs. Now at least it's not particularly slow, but I don't understand why I should use Discord unless I have to.
It also took me a while to figure out how to quit the damn thing. The only way seems to be right-clicking the tray icon. Which is nice as long as you have a tray in the first place. Having a "File > Quit" menu wouldn't have hurt. Or a button in the same menu that lets me log out and disable the account.
And judging by the fan noise in my laptop the Discord app seems to be a heavier burden than my Firefox session with over 1000 tabs. Now at least it's not particularly slow, but I don't understand why I should use Discord unless I have to.
How about clicking the bright red phone hang up button.
Other than that, most chat apps minimize to tray these days. You can toggle that behavior in the settings.
With your last point, I agree. It's just inherent to being an electron app I guess.
Other than that, most chat apps minimize to tray these days. You can toggle that behavior in the settings.
With your last point, I agree. It's just inherent to being an electron app I guess.
Ah, you're right, I didn't see that setting. The button to disconnect is white for me, though. I'll have to look again next time, maybe I'm going crazy.
> It's just inherent to being an electron app I guess.
A barebones Electron app has maybe ~100MB memory overhead and starts without noticeable delay. To me this seems like the same problem that leads to oversized and sluggish websites. Snappy, lightweight Electron apps exist, though they're uncommon.
> It's just inherent to being an electron app I guess.
A barebones Electron app has maybe ~100MB memory overhead and starts without noticeable delay. To me this seems like the same problem that leads to oversized and sluggish websites. Snappy, lightweight Electron apps exist, though they're uncommon.
Oh, they well could have changed the color of the button then. Haven't used voice in a while.
And yeah, discord is for sure very javascript heavy.
And yeah, discord is for sure very javascript heavy.
> How about clicking the bright red phone hang up button.
That isn't always there. If you navigate away from the voice channel page to read something, your only option is that tiny little button on the corner; or navigating back to the voice channel page, which is unintuitive itself.
That isn't always there. If you navigate away from the voice channel page to read something, your only option is that tiny little button on the corner; or navigating back to the voice channel page, which is unintuitive itself.
It seems obvious to me, but I've seen a number of people just sticking around in a voice channel after the chat was done.
> Every single Discord-related post here I see comments about the "bad ux". I'm a heavy Discord user and I have no complaints with the UX
Since I started using Discord, they have on three separate occasions moved a button I used frequently, and in its place added a button that attempts to extract money from me.
They've established a pattern of trying to monetise the application by tricking the user into doing something that they didn't want to do. That isn't just bad UX, it's actively hostile.
Since I started using Discord, they have on three separate occasions moved a button I used frequently, and in its place added a button that attempts to extract money from me.
They've established a pattern of trying to monetise the application by tricking the user into doing something that they didn't want to do. That isn't just bad UX, it's actively hostile.
I don't think tricking is the word for this. You're not going to click something by accident and be immediately billed for something. Yes, they've made monetisation more prominent, but I think that's fair for a platform that's free to use. I'd rather they attempt to get more revenue out of users via premium features than have to shut down cause they were operating at a loss.
> I don't think tricking is the word for this.
Tricking is 100% the right word for it. They are putting those Nitro buttons there with the clear intent that a user will click it by accident while attempting to access a different feature that used to be there.
> You're not going to click something by accident and be immediately billed for something.
If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it. I'm not claiming that they're outright scamming people out of money, but that they're using actively hostile UI/UX to profit by serving advertisements for Nitro when someone was trying to upload a photo. That's absolutely worthy of criticism.
Tricking is 100% the right word for it. They are putting those Nitro buttons there with the clear intent that a user will click it by accident while attempting to access a different feature that used to be there.
> You're not going to click something by accident and be immediately billed for something.
If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it. I'm not claiming that they're outright scamming people out of money, but that they're using actively hostile UI/UX to profit by serving advertisements for Nitro when someone was trying to upload a photo. That's absolutely worthy of criticism.
> advertisements for Nitro when someone was trying to upload a photo
The gifting button is only beside the upload button on mobile, and personally I've never hit it accidentally. To me it just seems like they've made it more prominent, I don't see any intent to trick people into mis-clicking. Like I've said, I have no problem with them trying to make more money, they need to make a profit to keep providing a free service.
The gifting button is only beside the upload button on mobile, and personally I've never hit it accidentally. To me it just seems like they've made it more prominent, I don't see any intent to trick people into mis-clicking. Like I've said, I have no problem with them trying to make more money, they need to make a profit to keep providing a free service.
> The gifting button is only beside the upload button on mobile, and personally I've never hit it accidentally. To me it just seems like they've made it more prominent, I don't see any intent to trick people into mis-clicking.
Perhaps you don't remember what that UI used to look like. For most of Discord's existence, there were two buttons to the left of the chatbox in the mobile app. The leftmost of these was a camera icon (for taking a photo and immediately uploading it), and the rightmost was the gallery icon, for uploading an existing image. For the vast majority of users, the gallery icon would have been the most commonly used.
In 2020 they got rid of the camera icon entirely (now requiring an additional menu to get to it), moved the gallery icon, and then where the gallery icon used to be they added the Gift Nitro icon. Instead of using the empty space vacated by the camera icon they moved a feature used >10,000x more so that the Nitro button could benefit from everyone's muscle memory.
At the time it happened misclicks and feeling tricked was an extremely common complaint [1], to the extent that I do not believe for a second that a team of people competent enough to build such an otherwise excellent piece of software could possibly have not foreseen it occurring. That this is not an isolated incident but rather part of a pattern helps cement that judgment.
> Like I've said, I have no problem with them trying to make more money, they need to make a profit to keep providing a free service.
I do have a problem with it, because they're trying to make money by tricking their users. I'm perfectly happy to go back to IRC if the only way they can think of to keep their company afloat is to deliberately make their product worse to use.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=discord+gift+nitro+button+im...
Perhaps you don't remember what that UI used to look like. For most of Discord's existence, there were two buttons to the left of the chatbox in the mobile app. The leftmost of these was a camera icon (for taking a photo and immediately uploading it), and the rightmost was the gallery icon, for uploading an existing image. For the vast majority of users, the gallery icon would have been the most commonly used.
In 2020 they got rid of the camera icon entirely (now requiring an additional menu to get to it), moved the gallery icon, and then where the gallery icon used to be they added the Gift Nitro icon. Instead of using the empty space vacated by the camera icon they moved a feature used >10,000x more so that the Nitro button could benefit from everyone's muscle memory.
At the time it happened misclicks and feeling tricked was an extremely common complaint [1], to the extent that I do not believe for a second that a team of people competent enough to build such an otherwise excellent piece of software could possibly have not foreseen it occurring. That this is not an isolated incident but rather part of a pattern helps cement that judgment.
> Like I've said, I have no problem with them trying to make more money, they need to make a profit to keep providing a free service.
I do have a problem with it, because they're trying to make money by tricking their users. I'm perfectly happy to go back to IRC if the only way they can think of to keep their company afloat is to deliberately make their product worse to use.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=discord+gift+nitro+button+im...
>I'm a heavy Discord user and I have no complaints with the UX, I find it pretty intuitive to be honest.
You say this like they should contradict, but heavy use of Discord should only make the UX more intuitive to you. Maybe it's less intuitive to less heavy users?
You say this like they should contradict, but heavy use of Discord should only make the UX more intuitive to you. Maybe it's less intuitive to less heavy users?
Discord has taken things that worked in the web client and removed them to force you to download their app.
> you don't have to host it
I really wish you could though
I really wish you could though
A lot of the ease of using Discord comes from the fact that every server just works, and you can join using a link. If people could host their own servers I'd imagine you'd end up with poorly-hosted servers that would degrade the overall experience.
And highly increase the personal privacy and use cases. Let's be real this was a monetary decision and nothing else.
Theres only so much even an inexperienced admin can do wrong when hosting something as basic as a chat platform. The various limits a potential machine could have are very obvious immediately. If people could host their own servers the artificial limitations discord is using to extract money from its userbase would be even more incomprehensible, and the network effect wouldn't be nearly as strong because every instance would presumably have its own account registry, both points will prevent discord indefinetly from ever allowing self managed instances.
Tried to ask the Matrix devs about room emotes being broken on Android (though they work on web) and they just ignored me completely. Matrix is simply half baked and somehow barely works so that I keep using it. But they aren't even close to the point where things just work.
[deleted]
Room emotes? Custom emoticons? WTF, what client are you running? That sounds great.
[deleted]
It's proprietary and extremely hostile towards user privacy. There is no reason to use it.
> There is no reason to use it [if you value open source and privacy above everything else].
Discord is the classic freemium monopoly trap. They want to capture market share with a walled garden and once they do they will alter the terms to milk out every last drop of revenue they can before everyone jumps ship to the new new thing.
Could you name at least two other platforms that offer at least
Decent chat (file sharing, emojis, support for code snippets), decent voice chat, decent streaming and supports PUSH2TALK button?
and I personally prefer when it is not self-hosted due to DDoS risk, but it's not must have.
and is e.g F/OSS?
Because I'm unable to name and that's why I started using Discord
Decent chat (file sharing, emojis, support for code snippets), decent voice chat, decent streaming and supports PUSH2TALK button?
and I personally prefer when it is not self-hosted due to DDoS risk, but it's not must have.
and is e.g F/OSS?
Because I'm unable to name and that's why I started using Discord
When you pile together half a dozen different requirements, of course the number of products in the middle of your resulting Venn diagram is going to be narrowed down to one. Especially if you already had that answer in mind when you laid out your requirements list. The question that needs asked is not, "What is the one product that exactly fits my personal needs?", but "What feature set of a communication platform meets most of the needs of most of the people?"
Is Discord the best answer to that broader question, to handle many different use cases for many different audiences? If so, it makes sense for them to expand their market. If not, stick to what they are good at.
Is Discord the best answer to that broader question, to handle many different use cases for many different audiences? If so, it makes sense for them to expand their market. If not, stick to what they are good at.
Discord is a very good answer to that question for gaming communities: its features almost perfectly overlap with the set of different apps each gaming community would inevitably set up. It just so happens this set is also a good match (or a superset of) the features many other communities want as well, and where it isn't, it complements other platforms nicely.
Would you also like fries with that? Of course you arent going to get the same for $0 (discord is not free, you re just wasting investor money).
Mattermost is the best self-hosted alternative and it works great for the chat part. Dont know about the rest.
Mattermost is the best self-hosted alternative and it works great for the chat part. Dont know about the rest.
> you re just wasting investor money
While it's bleeding investor money, it's also grabbing your data:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/coo3h6/discord_use...
While it's bleeding investor money, it's also grabbing your data:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/coo3h6/discord_use...
> works great for the chat part. Dont know about the rest.
Great, so it's not an alternative at all.
Great, so it's not an alternative at all.
MSFT Teams, Slack, Google Chat. Hate as much as you want but there's virtually no difference in terms of capabilities among these players.
>MSFT Teams
>Allow users to enable push to talk in group meetings
>2021-06-01
>Thank you for your continued feedback, we have not forgotten about this ask. The feature remains on our backlog. We will share an update as soon as one is available.
>In the meantime, you can try using the keyboard shortcut to toggle mute (Ctrl+Shift+M)
It has 3400 votes since 2017(!)
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...
_____________
and yes, this feature is important because switching between apps just to mute/unmute yourself is terrible experience and
this problem has been solved like 2 decades ago or more with PUSH2TALK.
It makes gaming or even coding and streaming and talking while having people at home
(especially now, during WFH/pandemic) annoying as hell.
___________
The rest I didn't check.
>Allow users to enable push to talk in group meetings
>2021-06-01
>Thank you for your continued feedback, we have not forgotten about this ask. The feature remains on our backlog. We will share an update as soon as one is available.
>In the meantime, you can try using the keyboard shortcut to toggle mute (Ctrl+Shift+M)
It has 3400 votes since 2017(!)
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...
_____________
and yes, this feature is important because switching between apps just to mute/unmute yourself is terrible experience and
this problem has been solved like 2 decades ago or more with PUSH2TALK.
It makes gaming or even coding and streaming and talking while having people at home
(especially now, during WFH/pandemic) annoying as hell.
___________
The rest I didn't check.
Why isn't a mute toggle a solution? I set up caps lock with autohotkey to be a mute toggle in Windows. It works well.
The only complaint with this is that if I'm running multiple voice chats at the same time then I need to use some other keybinds to mute individual applications. Still, for most users this would be more than adequate.
The only complaint with this is that if I'm running multiple voice chats at the same time then I need to use some other keybinds to mute individual applications. Still, for most users this would be more than adequate.
I think if you'd want to use other button than caps, then sometimes you may be not sure whether you're on or off
Anyway, I prefer mouse scroll button (mouse3) instead of caps
Anyway, I prefer mouse scroll button (mouse3) instead of caps
It actually overrides caps lock behavior so there's no light. It does mean that sometimes I don't know what state it is in. That's why a 2nd keybind to set it to only mute is helpful because it'll reset the state.
I use toggle mute a lot in Discord, especially on devices where I don't use a mic with a hardware mute, but Teams does not, as far as I have checked, have a customizable keybind for toggle mute that doesn't require you to have the application focused. Which is really annoying, especially when in a meeting and getting asked a question while in another window.
Ideally, Windows would give us a customizable keybind to mute your microphone globally. Sadly, that's not the case so you have to get a script to do it.
Yeah I also find it really weird that push to talk only ever surfaces in gaming focused voice chat. It's useful for any situation with more than a couple of people, especially when they're typing while on the call.
I think corpos and normies are too polite to call someone out for heavy breathing at the microphone.
I remember during my days of wow raiding hearing someone else's background or breathing noise during the raid was not acceptable.
I remember during my days of wow raiding hearing someone else's background or breathing noise during the raid was not acceptable.
The mute button works fine - if your mouse is free to click it, and the video window is foregrounded, and you don't need to interject at a moment's notice.
That doesn't work well for gamers, for obvious reasons.
That doesn't work well for gamers, for obvious reasons.
> someone else's background or breathing noise
NVIDIA Broadcast (Previously called RTX Voice) is a godsend for those scenarios.
If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. It is absolutely magical. https://youtu.be/uWUHkCgslNE
Sadly, AFAIK, it does require an NVIDIA GPU, but it doesn't need an RTX card. I used it on my GTX 1070 and it worked wonderfully.
What's really amazing about it is that you can use it to filter incoming voice audio, so if you have someone in your channel that has tons of background noise or breathing, you can filter it out on your own side.
NVIDIA Broadcast (Previously called RTX Voice) is a godsend for those scenarios.
If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. It is absolutely magical. https://youtu.be/uWUHkCgslNE
Sadly, AFAIK, it does require an NVIDIA GPU, but it doesn't need an RTX card. I used it on my GTX 1070 and it worked wonderfully.
What's really amazing about it is that you can use it to filter incoming voice audio, so if you have someone in your channel that has tons of background noise or breathing, you can filter it out on your own side.
Still, how "corpos and normies" can stand kids as somebody's background? which is something normal during pandemic
I haven't used Google Chat yet, but Teams and Slack just feel very sluggish on my slow-ish work ultrabook. Switching between chats or starting a call takes two seconds while Electron gobbles all CPU and RAM it can get. Discord on the other hand feels almost like a native app.
> Google Chat ... virtually no difference in terms of capabilities
Gchat has probably 10% of the features of Teams/Slack, and even those don't work. As an example, try to copy the link to a gchat thread.
Gchat has probably 10% of the features of Teams/Slack, and even those don't work. As an example, try to copy the link to a gchat thread.
We started using Teams at work and its UI is awful compared to Discord. The worst thing is notifications -- by default you get a popup for every single message that somebody sends. So then you change the settings to only pop up when somebody @s you. Good luck getting all your coworkers to do that; 90% of the time you will get a message and then just not see it for an hour because Teams didn't prompt you.
Discord solved this. Small red icon on the dock icon indicating that there are messages in a server you haven't muted. The icon changes to a number if you got a ping or DM.
Discord solved this. Small red icon on the dock icon indicating that there are messages in a server you haven't muted. The icon changes to a number if you got a ping or DM.
This is possible in teams by setting yourself to DND. You'll still see the icon in your dock but you won't get popup notifications.
Having said that I also prefer Discord, especially the drop in voice channels.
Having said that I also prefer Discord, especially the drop in voice channels.
Element[0]: hast everything except probably push to talk.
You can freely choose a real server and can talk to anyone on any other server.
[0]: https://element.io
You can freely choose a real server and can talk to anyone on any other server.
[0]: https://element.io
Second that recommendation. Element is getting very solid as an alternative with channel support and E2E.
With respect to the Element devs (I want to see it succeed) it's UX and polish is night and day compared to Slack. I struggle with Element and I've been using messaging apps my whole life.
> Element
Fyi in case anyone reading this didn't know, Element is a client for the Matrix protocol, by the people who are the prominent developers and supporters for the Matrix Foundation.
Matrix only has inbuilt support for 1 on 1 calls right now, it (Element) uses Jitsi for group/channel calls. Native Matrix group calls and video calls are coming very soon, along with (hopefully) push to talk in the Element client, and custom emoji for those who like that stuff.
Fyi in case anyone reading this didn't know, Element is a client for the Matrix protocol, by the people who are the prominent developers and supporters for the Matrix Foundation.
Matrix only has inbuilt support for 1 on 1 calls right now, it (Element) uses Jitsi for group/channel calls. Native Matrix group calls and video calls are coming very soon, along with (hopefully) push to talk in the Element client, and custom emoji for those who like that stuff.
But you don't have push to talk, which is the killer feature for gamers. Proper push to talk will capture key presses even when the app doesn't have focus, the key difference with most other implementations.
And having that feature exposed to the web is a security nightmare. Unless you have a native app for your service, it's unlikely to ever have that functionality.
And having that feature exposed to the web is a security nightmare. Unless you have a native app for your service, it's unlikely to ever have that functionality.
Element doesn't have inline video embedding for any link, the emoticon support sucks, and the voice chat leaves a lot to be desired.
I like Matrix and I like Element, but let's not pretend something missing features that forums have had since 2007 is going to have a user overlap with Discord. It's much more cumbersome to use in comparison, and much more work to set up.
I like Matrix and I like Element, but let's not pretend something missing features that forums have had since 2007 is going to have a user overlap with Discord. It's much more cumbersome to use in comparison, and much more work to set up.
Mumble fits 2/4 of those. Chat with emoji/better drag-and-drop file sharing would be trivial I expect, with full-time developers paid to make it happen.
Seamless video streaming is harder. And like others said, Discord is pretty much spyware freemium software. Your incredible experience is being subsidized by investors and your own data.
Seamless video streaming is harder. And like others said, Discord is pretty much spyware freemium software. Your incredible experience is being subsidized by investors and your own data.
I don't know about streaming (have no use for it and it sounds like a kitchen sink), but Telegram has everything else you've listed.
I'm not sure what do you mean by "kitchen sink", but at work we do often share screen with eachothers
e.g when somebody needs help with something / to help debug something or show current version of app to my product owner.
It's very handy feature
e.g when somebody needs help with something / to help debug something or show current version of app to my product owner.
It's very handy feature
Chat: Mattermost
Voice chat with push-to-talk: Mumble
Streaming: OBS
> and I personally prefer when it is not self-hosted due to DDoS risk
Only let your friends connect via Wireguard.
Voice chat with push-to-talk: Mumble
Streaming: OBS
> and I personally prefer when it is not self-hosted due to DDoS risk
Only let your friends connect via Wireguard.
Mumble is my currently choice for a F/OSS alternative to group chat. Works fine, especially for having open in the background with push to talk. No chat history or built in tools for sharing videos, code or streaming.
The chat app treadmill.
Every couple years a new chat app with the same basic features as the last one (and slightly better background noise filtering) will crop up. However, the new chat app won't contain the legacy contact information of people you don't really want to talk to anymore, but feel awkward about deleting. And the old chat app will have started to do annoying things for monetization purposes, having run out of VC money.
And of course, you use the new chat app. You will try, but fail, to convince your friends to use the open source alternative. It requires self-hosting and IP addresses.
Every couple years a new chat app with the same basic features as the last one (and slightly better background noise filtering) will crop up. However, the new chat app won't contain the legacy contact information of people you don't really want to talk to anymore, but feel awkward about deleting. And the old chat app will have started to do annoying things for monetization purposes, having run out of VC money.
And of course, you use the new chat app. You will try, but fail, to convince your friends to use the open source alternative. It requires self-hosting and IP addresses.
True sign of success: HN doesn't get the appeal of the product and they wonder why people are using it.
This have happened so many times, it's actually a good indicator.
This have happened so many times, it's actually a good indicator.
Also I see nothing about Discord trying to compete with Slack or Teams. I see it to expanding other communities like sub-reddits, forums and Facebook. Offering a different service from them. And for such purpose it's perfectly good product. Managing and allowing largish communities a chat platform.
They should compete, they have most of the features already. There's no rational reason to say no to all that SAAS money given that the products are so similar.
As far as I'm concerned it's pretty much a drop in replacement for slack. There's very little that slack does that I need that discord can't do. Slack however does lack the nice/easy to use UX for talking to each other or sharing screens.
Where they lack is enterprise features that have nothing to do with the UX which would include things like auditing and security, billing for a team, ensuring everyone in the team has the premium features, etc. That's probably hard to fix because the way discord is setup, only individuals pay for getting premium features such as high resolution video for sharing. That makes more sense for gamers than for corporate usage. Likewise, you have one account on discord for every community and slack has a one account per community thing. I have about 10+ accounts with them. Really annoying actually. Discord could do something like Github did which is allowing Github members to be added to any team and managing premium features on a per team basis.
As far as I'm concerned it's pretty much a drop in replacement for slack. There's very little that slack does that I need that discord can't do. Slack however does lack the nice/easy to use UX for talking to each other or sharing screens.
Where they lack is enterprise features that have nothing to do with the UX which would include things like auditing and security, billing for a team, ensuring everyone in the team has the premium features, etc. That's probably hard to fix because the way discord is setup, only individuals pay for getting premium features such as high resolution video for sharing. That makes more sense for gamers than for corporate usage. Likewise, you have one account on discord for every community and slack has a one account per community thing. I have about 10+ accounts with them. Really annoying actually. Discord could do something like Github did which is allowing Github members to be added to any team and managing premium features on a per team basis.
Are you remembering the negative anecdotal evidence and disregarding the predictions that were right?
Has anyone conducted a study of HN sentiments?
Has anyone conducted a study of HN sentiments?
Not a study but there was an article about this on the frontpage yesterday. Can't find it now.
Discord is easy to use which is why its so popular. Install, pick a name and go. I don't even remember creating an account, just typing in a nick name. Even on Void Linux Musl you can install it via flatpack, scan the qr code and you're logged in with all your servers and channels already there. You couldn't setup an IRC client that fast.
My great gripe? No 3rd party clients. It's also massively bloated for my need of sending a few bytes of text. For this reason I use it for just one server and to communicate with two friends and my brother.
Otherwise I use IRC where I'm on three networks and 26 channels. IRC is much less convenient for sure in terms of nick registering (some SOB took my name!) "back scroll" and persistence across clients/systems but it does 99% of what I want from a chat client: chatting via text.
My great gripe? No 3rd party clients. It's also massively bloated for my need of sending a few bytes of text. For this reason I use it for just one server and to communicate with two friends and my brother.
Otherwise I use IRC where I'm on three networks and 26 channels. IRC is much less convenient for sure in terms of nick registering (some SOB took my name!) "back scroll" and persistence across clients/systems but it does 99% of what I want from a chat client: chatting via text.
> Discord is easy to use which is why its so popular.
I found this phrasing subjective because I don't find it easier to use. I tried Discord Web, Desktop & mobile, frankly they are not easier to use for me. I found it confusing because I suddenly need to have a role assigned to me. For that, I have to go through loops and hopping on subchannels to get myself a role for me to be able to have a conversation. One server that have like 5 different subchannel and I have to go through each of them to get a role. After trying to get figure out how to get that for half hour, I gave up. Simply too much work for trying to ask for a help. Discord is not designed AND substitution for general forums. I seen several game developers/publishers trying to tell their Steam users to go on Discord for any issues, requests, anything. I found that convoluted because Discord is not easier to use for first timer and plus there is Steam forum for this.
One thing I can't do in Discord (Slack & Signal included as well) is that I can't have multiple chat windows in my desktop like we can do in Trillan, Pidgin, AIM, ICQ, etc. My work is using Slack and it is a pain in the ass to go back and forth with various channel than having multiple windows for easier access. I prefer Slack over Discord because Slack don't make it complicated when it come to channels.
I found this phrasing subjective because I don't find it easier to use. I tried Discord Web, Desktop & mobile, frankly they are not easier to use for me. I found it confusing because I suddenly need to have a role assigned to me. For that, I have to go through loops and hopping on subchannels to get myself a role for me to be able to have a conversation. One server that have like 5 different subchannel and I have to go through each of them to get a role. After trying to get figure out how to get that for half hour, I gave up. Simply too much work for trying to ask for a help. Discord is not designed AND substitution for general forums. I seen several game developers/publishers trying to tell their Steam users to go on Discord for any issues, requests, anything. I found that convoluted because Discord is not easier to use for first timer and plus there is Steam forum for this.
One thing I can't do in Discord (Slack & Signal included as well) is that I can't have multiple chat windows in my desktop like we can do in Trillan, Pidgin, AIM, ICQ, etc. My work is using Slack and it is a pain in the ass to go back and forth with various channel than having multiple windows for easier access. I prefer Slack over Discord because Slack don't make it complicated when it come to channels.
> I found it confusing because I suddenly need to have a role assigned to me. For that, [...]
Not every Discord server is configured like that. With many, you just add the server and start chatting. Some servers use the "role" thing to slow down spam and force an acknowledgement of the server rules.
Not every Discord server is configured like that. With many, you just add the server and start chatting. Some servers use the "role" thing to slow down spam and force an acknowledgement of the server rules.
Nowadays you have to create an account with you e-mail for using Discord.
The desktop client is spyware, and the chats aren’t e2e encrypted.
Technically there are third party clients, they just break tos and can get you banned if you're not careful. Ripcord has a lot of cool features, I just wish I could risk using it.
That's just it, they're so hostile they ban people for trying to use their service. Plus their API changes often enough to make it an annoying game cat and mouse for the devs. There are two discord clients for plan 9, both at one point worked, both are now abandoned. It's not at all worth it.
[deleted]
While discord supports text, the entire purpose of discord from a gaming perspective is voice chat, screen sharing and bot/server automation for players.
> You couldn't setup an IRC client that fast.
You can't today, there's no reason you eventually couldn't.
You can't today, there's no reason you eventually couldn't.
I know there are some attempts to fix those issues in IRC but at this point I'd rather Matrix as it already exists, works, open, is not user hostile (e.g. banned for using an alt client), and bridges to IRC and XMMP.
> No 3rd party clients.
I use a web browser to access Discord. But I would not use Discord for anything personal, only for public channels.
I use a web browser to access Discord. But I would not use Discord for anything personal, only for public channels.
Interesting to read that Discord has received higher offers than previously reported, as high as $18 billion, yet Jason refuses to sell and hopes to go public. Good for him to sticking to his guns, I don’t think I could say no to $18 billion!
It's a chat app. I cannot imagine not selling for an offer like that. Your opportunities for what to do next would be unbounded.
Not if you’d sell them too :)
[deleted]
opportunities aren't really a function of money in particular in the software world. You need a good project, good people and whatnot, but you don't need 18 billion dollars for your next company.
In fact if anything I'd honestly say it might be a negative to be that wealthy. A lot of ideas are the products of inventiveness in the face of constraints and a sense of urgency. There is a lot of super-wealthy 30 year olds that have emerged out of the big IPOs and a lot of them have basically retired.
In fact if anything I'd honestly say it might be a negative to be that wealthy. A lot of ideas are the products of inventiveness in the face of constraints and a sense of urgency. There is a lot of super-wealthy 30 year olds that have emerged out of the big IPOs and a lot of them have basically retired.
I don't expect every billionaire to do things of this nature, but I counter with Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
Myself? Definitely retirement. And race cars.
Myself? Definitely retirement. And race cars.
Retiring is not bad. Some complex and deep ideas cannot be brought to fruit in urgency but need years of mulling over.
"In fact if anything I'd honestly say it might be a negative to be that wealthy"
Honestly, that sounds like propaganda telling poor people to be happier with their lot in life. Who says they'd put 18 billion towards their next company anyway?
Honestly, that sounds like propaganda telling poor people to be happier with their lot in life. Who says they'd put 18 billion towards their next company anyway?
If they find a way to make discord a central part of the (VR) metaverse it will be worth a lot more. I could see them launching a competitor to Facebook’s Horizon. It makes a lot of sense.
Context: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-29/mark-zuck...
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/announcing-a-1-bil...
Context: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-29/mark-zuck...
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/announcing-a-1-bil...
Slack was acquired for $27.7 billion. It will be interesting to see where Discord can exit.
I mean, as soon as the platform IPOs, I'm going to move to something else. It is the way.
From his perspective: he is set regardless. Much better to ride out the amazing windfall of his own creation than vesting in peace at some mediocre ladder-driven megacorp.
In my limited experience Discord seems almost identical to Slack but with a much worse UI. Combine that with the fact that belonging to more than one server quickly becomes overwhelming (again, largely due to crappy UX) I’m concerned about how many communities are utilising it.
Can somebody that likes it explain why it seems to be doing so well?
Can somebody that likes it explain why it seems to be doing so well?
Have you used the slack client with more than one server? Last time I did the whole UI would reload when you switched.
Discord took off because:
* The message search is much better than free tiers of slack
* You don't need to set up a separate account per server
* It didn't have the user limits of Teamspeak
* It didn't have the ads of Skype
* A big inflection point was Skype launching their desktop client that was basically Web Skype in a window and sucked
* For a server with your gaming buddies, a drop in drop out perma voice channel is really a better model than distinct calls for slack. Also for public servers. And if you want to VC with your friends 1:1, the option is still there.
* Link sharing to invite users to a server vs having to set up a server/bot to give out invites as running a public slack used to require. Also used to not even require an account so was great for that pick up player you found for one night
* For the large server setups, discord's permission/moderation setup is way more flexible than Slack's. Slack basically has admin/not admin. (though discord does need to separate pinning from deleting other user's messages)
---
For a summary, Slack is targeted at the business case. In a workplace chat, there should be no need to moderate, since bad behaviour can be taken to someone's boss/HR. And the sign up/multi server flow was not optimised for this usage model as Slack didn't care (at least when I last tried public Slacks, these days the only Slack I use is my employer's).
Discord is actually optimised for consumer use cases, and consequently built up such a network effect that even if Slack did invest heavily in their UX there, would be quite behind.
Discord took off because:
* The message search is much better than free tiers of slack
* You don't need to set up a separate account per server
* It didn't have the user limits of Teamspeak
* It didn't have the ads of Skype
* A big inflection point was Skype launching their desktop client that was basically Web Skype in a window and sucked
* For a server with your gaming buddies, a drop in drop out perma voice channel is really a better model than distinct calls for slack. Also for public servers. And if you want to VC with your friends 1:1, the option is still there.
* Link sharing to invite users to a server vs having to set up a server/bot to give out invites as running a public slack used to require. Also used to not even require an account so was great for that pick up player you found for one night
* For the large server setups, discord's permission/moderation setup is way more flexible than Slack's. Slack basically has admin/not admin. (though discord does need to separate pinning from deleting other user's messages)
---
For a summary, Slack is targeted at the business case. In a workplace chat, there should be no need to moderate, since bad behaviour can be taken to someone's boss/HR. And the sign up/multi server flow was not optimised for this usage model as Slack didn't care (at least when I last tried public Slacks, these days the only Slack I use is my employer's).
Discord is actually optimised for consumer use cases, and consequently built up such a network effect that even if Slack did invest heavily in their UX there, would be quite behind.
One of the things I really miss in more business focused apps is the radio style push to talk. It is so much more intuitive than muting.
From my experience:
Free
Able to hop servers/channels extremely easily (for a game it's just hey join this discord server/channel -> click and you're able to start speaking immediately)
Search is good, as it @ing someone to get their attention. Private messages also good
Share screen really easily
The bots are phenomenal. I use it to play world of Warcraft, we have a "raid bot" which is fantastic to organise stuff, and also have several music bots where everyone can hang out and listen to the same Spotify/YouTube playlists at the same time. I'm sure there are plenty of other bots but these two are just what I use.
Inline images, GIFs, videos etc are really smooth, as are reactions/replies
Drawbacks I've found:
App isn't the best. If I close it in the background as I do with most of my apps, I don't get a push notification so if someone PMs me I don't see it until I open the app again to check
Channel notifications can get overwhelming quite quickly, but tbh I'm not sure there's anything they can do about that other than maybe add an option to default mute everything and then only get notifications for what you want on joining a server.
Free
Able to hop servers/channels extremely easily (for a game it's just hey join this discord server/channel -> click and you're able to start speaking immediately)
Search is good, as it @ing someone to get their attention. Private messages also good
Share screen really easily
The bots are phenomenal. I use it to play world of Warcraft, we have a "raid bot" which is fantastic to organise stuff, and also have several music bots where everyone can hang out and listen to the same Spotify/YouTube playlists at the same time. I'm sure there are plenty of other bots but these two are just what I use.
Inline images, GIFs, videos etc are really smooth, as are reactions/replies
Drawbacks I've found:
App isn't the best. If I close it in the background as I do with most of my apps, I don't get a push notification so if someone PMs me I don't see it until I open the app again to check
Channel notifications can get overwhelming quite quickly, but tbh I'm not sure there's anything they can do about that other than maybe add an option to default mute everything and then only get notifications for what you want on joining a server.
It is free, and it has always had good push-to-talk voice chat using a permanent "room" concept (and not a "call" concept as is common with business-focused tools) suitable for gamers, towards which it actively marketed itself. This stuff has been in use by gamers for decades, but previous solutions either depended on paid servers or required one person to set up their own server on their own (or rented) hardware. Discord simply offered the same good voice chat, but without the server setup hassle or the costs associated with it.
The rest is network effects. If your entire gaming guild or clan or group of friends or whatever is using Discord, you are also using Discord.
If you mean "why is anyone besides gamer groups using Discord?", that is because most gamers are not just gamers, but also people working in day jobs, or open-source contributors, or active in NGOs, or have non-gamer friends with whom they needed to chat lately due to COVID restrictions, or whatever else. They knew Discord from their gaming life, so they just tried applying the tool that they already knew well to the (slightly different) job. With varying success, but with some success nevertheless in some cases.
The rest is network effects. If your entire gaming guild or clan or group of friends or whatever is using Discord, you are also using Discord.
If you mean "why is anyone besides gamer groups using Discord?", that is because most gamers are not just gamers, but also people working in day jobs, or open-source contributors, or active in NGOs, or have non-gamer friends with whom they needed to chat lately due to COVID restrictions, or whatever else. They knew Discord from their gaming life, so they just tried applying the tool that they already knew well to the (slightly different) job. With varying success, but with some success nevertheless in some cases.
It's free, has much better voice/video calls, but also has a much nicer UI IMO. It feels smoother and more lightweight, and dark mode is more first-class. The multi-server experience is much better - you can actually be part of conversations on two separate servers at the same time. The servers feel a lot more inclusive because the channel lists are visible by default, instead of having to search for a channel that might be there. And allowing replies but not threads made for a much better conversation experience
I don't use Discord for gaming, but I do (reluctantly) have to use it for volunteering work. One day I discovered Discord sets my status as "currently playing Game X" for everyone to see, to my horror!
What an absurd privacy violation.
What an absurd privacy violation.
This is a bit ridiculous. It's a gaming platform before anything else. In that scene it's very common to share your gaming status with others.
Not to mention that you can obviously disable this.
Not to mention that you can obviously disable this.
If you were introduced to Discord in a non-gaming-related context, it is very common to be unfamiliar with the tendency of gamers to share what game they are currently playing. There is no such habit in other, more "serious" contexts - for example MS Teams does not set "currently using Microsoft Powerpoint" or "currently coding in VS Code" as my publicly visible status at work. I can thus fully understand that a lot of people are (negatively) surprised by this - even gamers, because there's a huge number of people preferring singleplayer games out there that don't have the need to do any group coordination for which a tool like Discord (or built-in community features of games or game launchers) would be needed.
Hence if Discord aims at expanding its user base beyond the (multiplayer) gaming community, it should definitely think twice whether to keep this sharing setting enabled by default. At a minimum I would expect them to try to deduce somehow whether you are using Discord as a gamer or in a non-gaming-related setting, and use the suitable default. Or maybe just disable it by default, so gamers who want this feature enabled need to turn it on.
Hence if Discord aims at expanding its user base beyond the (multiplayer) gaming community, it should definitely think twice whether to keep this sharing setting enabled by default. At a minimum I would expect them to try to deduce somehow whether you are using Discord as a gamer or in a non-gaming-related setting, and use the suitable default. Or maybe just disable it by default, so gamers who want this feature enabled need to turn it on.
I'm not sure why they don't just create a business version branded separately from their gaming product. Even if it's just 'Discord for Business' a second client for business would solve almost all these problems. It's written in Electron, there wouldn't be millions of lines of code to change to enable a second branding and different ports.
I don't think these types of status updates (even automated ones) even originate in gaming contexts. "Currently listening to {song title}" has been a part of ambient status displays in IM interfaces since back early in the ICQ days.
I've known people in office settings automate their IM status (back to at least Lync/Skype for Business before Teams) to say things exactly like "making a presentation" or "busy coding", whether for fun or for micro-managing bosses or nagging coworkers hoping to digitally "peak over their shoulder".
Making it opt-out versus opt-in is maybe "gaming context-related" as Xbox and PlayStation both have opt-out versions on their own social networks. But the existence of detailed and automated status messages certainly isn't new from "gaming contexts".
I've known people in office settings automate their IM status (back to at least Lync/Skype for Business before Teams) to say things exactly like "making a presentation" or "busy coding", whether for fun or for micro-managing bosses or nagging coworkers hoping to digitally "peak over their shoulder".
Making it opt-out versus opt-in is maybe "gaming context-related" as Xbox and PlayStation both have opt-out versions on their own social networks. But the existence of detailed and automated status messages certainly isn't new from "gaming contexts".
> MS Teams does not set [...] "currently coding in VS Code" as my publicly visible status at work
Don't worry, Discord will!
Don't worry, Discord will!
Will it? At least under Linux it tries to only show things it thinks are games.
It takes a VS Code extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=icrawl.d...
Not the same as native support, but in fairness, I was being tongue in cheek!
Not the same as native support, but in fairness, I was being tongue in cheek!
By default, no.
But you can enable it on a per-app basis.
But you can enable it on a per-app basis.
But it only does that if you have "display current activity as a status message" selected.
You're angry because you connected your game account to it?
The fact that so many people on HN seem to hate the Discord UX is baffling to me. I don't get it. Discord's UX is just fine, IMO.
Maybe it's because Discord was targeted towards gamers, and I'm a gamer that had no problem understanding its UI?
If you join more than a dozen servers, yeah it can be a bit overwhelming, but Discord lets you put servers into groups, similar to how phones let you put apps into groups.
Maybe it's because Discord was targeted towards gamers, and I'm a gamer that had no problem understanding its UI?
If you join more than a dozen servers, yeah it can be a bit overwhelming, but Discord lets you put servers into groups, similar to how phones let you put apps into groups.
Its voice capabilities are light years ahead of slack. Which is why gamers use it.
> Can somebody that likes it explain why it seems to be doing so well?
It offers a couple of gamer-y features that Slack doesn't like voice channels. But make no mistake, the main reason is because it is free.
It offers a couple of gamer-y features that Slack doesn't like voice channels. But make no mistake, the main reason is because it is free.
I feel the opposite. I used slack for sometime and I felt it to be bloated. Discord feels much better to me.
Because its free. Slack is not.
It's the easiest way for me to connect with the community, and basically every VR developer or VR project can be found there so it's easy to connect with like minded people.
There are also a lot of bots you can add for different tasks.
It kind of feels like a realtime social network.
Where it's really lacking is to structure information that should be available to anyone, but I guess that's not what it's meant for anyway
There are also a lot of bots you can add for different tasks.
It kind of feels like a realtime social network.
Where it's really lacking is to structure information that should be available to anyone, but I guess that's not what it's meant for anyway
Slack is free as well. Or at least, like discord, it has a freemium layer. We use both and we pay for neither.
You're really underestimating Discord's free layer. I have a server that's literally just me which I've dumped tons of images and videos into. It's like an unlimited cloud storage bucket, so long as the individual files are below a certain size. It also won't prevent you from seeing stuff after you've got 10k messages.
I think it's a clear difference in business model:
Slack's business model is selling to "the group". The features you have available are what your "admin" decides is good for the group, and upgrades (especially upgrades from the "free layer") need to financed/budgeted as a group decision.
Discord's business model is that individual users are the paying customers so there are fewer features "nickel and dimed" at the group level. If I want better paid features as a user I don't have to convince an entire group to buy into the idea. I especially don't have to convince multiple such groups to do it if I want the same paid features in every group I am a participant in I don't have to convince the admins of multiple groups to pay for them (and/or figure out how to bill for them). Where Discord does have group-level paid features ("boosts"), they are presented as bottom up "collective individual effort as multiplier" more than "the group needs to top down pay a monthly invoice".
From a user perspective, in Slack I'm not the customer, I'm a cog in some wheel that is the customer. On Discord, I'm the customer, and that deeply impacts a lot of how Discord operates including and especially how it treats the "free layer".
Slack's business model is selling to "the group". The features you have available are what your "admin" decides is good for the group, and upgrades (especially upgrades from the "free layer") need to financed/budgeted as a group decision.
Discord's business model is that individual users are the paying customers so there are fewer features "nickel and dimed" at the group level. If I want better paid features as a user I don't have to convince an entire group to buy into the idea. I especially don't have to convince multiple such groups to do it if I want the same paid features in every group I am a participant in I don't have to convince the admins of multiple groups to pay for them (and/or figure out how to bill for them). Where Discord does have group-level paid features ("boosts"), they are presented as bottom up "collective individual effort as multiplier" more than "the group needs to top down pay a monthly invoice".
From a user perspective, in Slack I'm not the customer, I'm a cog in some wheel that is the customer. On Discord, I'm the customer, and that deeply impacts a lot of how Discord operates including and especially how it treats the "free layer".
Have you ever set up a free slack community?
Because I haven't. It's a nightmare, you need custom software to even invite people.
Besides that, its severely limited. Discord has a real free model, slack does not.
Because I haven't. It's a nightmare, you need custom software to even invite people.
Besides that, its severely limited. Discord has a real free model, slack does not.
It hasn't been that way for years. You can generate and share invite links now. The idea that you had to set up custom software to do those invites only existed for a period of about 18 months when they were trying to foster organic growth.
I've used discord for a number of years, and use it almost daily with my friends. Arguments over UX will always be opinionated, but one thing where discord absolutely shines is voice chat. There's just no competition to any other voice chat system out there; it's fast, it's high quality, and most importantly, it filters out non-voices. Clapping, water faucet, vacuums, crunching chips, coughing, breathing, desk noises, none of it comes through and all of it gets filtered out. It makes for a significantly better experience when I don't have to deal with someone else's "voice chat etiquette" incompetence/ignorance.
> There's just no competition to any other voice chat system out there
Steam's voice chat is nice. Somehow low latency VOIP where you don't interrupt eachother due to lag is something only gamers need ...
Skype used to be good too. Somewhere down the line they switched to some high latency mess.
Steam's voice chat is nice. Somehow low latency VOIP where you don't interrupt eachother due to lag is something only gamers need ...
Skype used to be good too. Somewhere down the line they switched to some high latency mess.
There is a huge wave of transitions from reddit/ forums towards discord because it offers voice chat / image uploads for free. It's not gonna last at that, chat is a bad format compared to hierarchical replies, hard to search etc. Gaming is their niche but at some point games will want to stop bleeding their community to them. There is also a proliferation of communities which leads to a lot of activity because it's a new platform, but as always, very few of them will survive. Then at some point they 'll also block all NSFW content and more people will leave. The value of their offering is that they re free, but money runs out, and slack already exists. Another case of overfunding for unsustainable growth.
I see it as complementary service. Reddit and forums aren't really suitable for chatting. Where as discord wills that niche very well. So communities will consist of forum/sub-reddit and a chat on Discord. One is more permanent and one is more ephemeral...
[deleted]
Reddit also provides image uploads for free, and most people on discord never use the voice chats as far as I can tell.
It's mostly real-time vs less than real-time communication. Discord for what is worth isn't that hard to search, and I wouldn't mind if they gave the option to some servers to have their logs automatically go to a crawlable page so they'd be indexed by Google. Of course, that won't work everywhere as real-time chats are often also used as they feel more ephemeral.
It's mostly real-time vs less than real-time communication. Discord for what is worth isn't that hard to search, and I wouldn't mind if they gave the option to some servers to have their logs automatically go to a crawlable page so they'd be indexed by Google. Of course, that won't work everywhere as real-time chats are often also used as they feel more ephemeral.
No one uses voice chat in public servers. You use voice chat in private friends servers. You get home turn on your desktop and see 3 friends on a chat and join in.
Block all non-NSFW? Are you saying it'll turn into PornHub but without the educational videos?
Is nobody concerned about privacy?
I don't like this: https://www.tosdr.org/en/service/discord
I don't like this: https://www.tosdr.org/en/service/discord
(So this turned into a log rant... sorry)
Nope, sadly not! People are complacent and unwilling to make a change due to the convience of it. Most people are unwilling to leave the online friends behind that refuse to join you on more ethical platforms. People become tied to communities, of which most are on Discord, and are unwilling to leave them out of fear of feeling alone, or because they require whatever feelings of happiness/dopamine they get from those communities.
I used discord primarily for a large friend group, on one guild/server, but of course was in a bunch of other servers for things that were ultimately useless. Leaving Discord made me feel less controlled by the dopamine effect of interacting with 'communities'. My friends barely use discord for anything other than our friend group, but are unwilling to move off of it because 'pretty UI', or 'emojis', or 'bots', etc. Some of them "don't care about privacy" because "no one at discord cares about your messages/data", " I have nothing to hide", the usual fallacies regarding privacy. The last reason is "laze"/"don't care".
My friends are all in the tech/software space, have careers or are aiming for careers in the space. Some of them even share posts from Hacker News on the regular. Some use Linux, one of them even uses it partly out of privacy concerns. Point is, they're not oblivious to this stuff. If anyone begins to start trying out other services with me like Matrix, they're immediately disuaded because someone else in the group doesn't want to and says they're never going to leave Discord.
I've since just been using a Matrix bridge to continue being part of the group. I've decided though that I will have no part in Discord's increasing monopoly in the chat message space, with their walled garden practices. Once Matrix native voice and video chat rolls out, I'm done with the Matrix-Discord bridge. If my friends don't want to make ethical decisions and put themselves back in control of their online lives and data, then I lose my online group chat. So be it. I'll still see them out in the real world. Friends (for better or worse) come and go every decade. Sucks but I'm so done with no one caring and having to jump through hoops for people who don't care.
Nope, sadly not! People are complacent and unwilling to make a change due to the convience of it. Most people are unwilling to leave the online friends behind that refuse to join you on more ethical platforms. People become tied to communities, of which most are on Discord, and are unwilling to leave them out of fear of feeling alone, or because they require whatever feelings of happiness/dopamine they get from those communities.
I used discord primarily for a large friend group, on one guild/server, but of course was in a bunch of other servers for things that were ultimately useless. Leaving Discord made me feel less controlled by the dopamine effect of interacting with 'communities'. My friends barely use discord for anything other than our friend group, but are unwilling to move off of it because 'pretty UI', or 'emojis', or 'bots', etc. Some of them "don't care about privacy" because "no one at discord cares about your messages/data", " I have nothing to hide", the usual fallacies regarding privacy. The last reason is "laze"/"don't care".
My friends are all in the tech/software space, have careers or are aiming for careers in the space. Some of them even share posts from Hacker News on the regular. Some use Linux, one of them even uses it partly out of privacy concerns. Point is, they're not oblivious to this stuff. If anyone begins to start trying out other services with me like Matrix, they're immediately disuaded because someone else in the group doesn't want to and says they're never going to leave Discord.
I've since just been using a Matrix bridge to continue being part of the group. I've decided though that I will have no part in Discord's increasing monopoly in the chat message space, with their walled garden practices. Once Matrix native voice and video chat rolls out, I'm done with the Matrix-Discord bridge. If my friends don't want to make ethical decisions and put themselves back in control of their online lives and data, then I lose my online group chat. So be it. I'll still see them out in the real world. Friends (for better or worse) come and go every decade. Sucks but I'm so done with no one caring and having to jump through hoops for people who don't care.
Obviously a bloated UI for chatting is more important than privacy. At least for their audience
I logged in to write the same.
I have never installed Discord because its privacy policies are scary
I have never installed Discord because its privacy policies are scary
Hi ***,
This is a just a super quick notice that we will be closing your open support ticket and I will be eating it shortly.
Hopefully we solved your issue with such grace and finesse that you didn't need to respond. If that's the case, great! Meal for me.
Otherwise, please respond and we will sick our support team on the problem like a dog on some marbled wagyu. And then I'll find something else to eat, I guess.
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Hello!
This is the HN comments of Facebook’s latest valuation in 2007:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34057
I wonder if HN will ever be bullish on a product that’s targeting the general audience. We seem to only be able to see technical expertise as the only moat. I guess this is why product managers that can’t code get paid the big bucks. Anyone know if there’s a HN made up of folks with astute product sense?
Or even better: Anyone know of a Discord server I could join. ;)
This is the HN comments of Facebook’s latest valuation in 2007:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34057
I wonder if HN will ever be bullish on a product that’s targeting the general audience. We seem to only be able to see technical expertise as the only moat. I guess this is why product managers that can’t code get paid the big bucks. Anyone know if there’s a HN made up of folks with astute product sense?
Or even better: Anyone know of a Discord server I could join. ;)
> I wonder if HN will ever be bullish on a product that’s targeting the general audience.
Sure. I don't think anyone is doubting Discord will pump a ridiculous valuation and make boatloads of money. That's not really impressing anyone here, not anymore.
In more general terms: that you can impress the general audience with shiny trinkets, shepherd them into a walled garden, and then milk them for all they're worth - it's a well-known, common pattern. It's not interesting, except in terms of what we're losing as a society and as an industry because of it. So it's the latter things that get disproportional attention on HN.
Sure. I don't think anyone is doubting Discord will pump a ridiculous valuation and make boatloads of money. That's not really impressing anyone here, not anymore.
In more general terms: that you can impress the general audience with shiny trinkets, shepherd them into a walled garden, and then milk them for all they're worth - it's a well-known, common pattern. It's not interesting, except in terms of what we're losing as a society and as an industry because of it. So it's the latter things that get disproportional attention on HN.
In comparison to Teams, Discord is a godsend. I think the biggest problem in this space is a lack of quality competition.
Teams is an abomination, in other words it's a typical Microsoft product.
I have to admit I am almost surprised by this. Microsoft has quite some experience with bad chat software. You would think they learned one or two things that they can do better. I
I have to work with Teams every day and many times I wonder who thought the way it works is a good idea? There are so many other decent products mentioned here like Discord, Mattermost, Slack. Just nick a few ideas from each and set up a not exciting but equally decent chat software. Somehow Microsoft managed to make it worse ..
I have to work with Teams every day and many times I wonder who thought the way it works is a good idea? There are so many other decent products mentioned here like Discord, Mattermost, Slack. Just nick a few ideas from each and set up a not exciting but equally decent chat software. Somehow Microsoft managed to make it worse ..
OT but seriously, name one good Microsoft product other than paint.
Excel
VS Code, TypeScript, C#, F#, GitHub but it doesn't count... I've heard good things about OneNote, I guess.
Yeah GitHub/TypeScript kinda don't count. I have an ignorant question though : do people use c# or f# in a non-windows system, by choice ? Otherwise, wouldn't that be a self fulfilling need ?
Edit: typo
Edit: typo
Yes, version 5 of the .NET platform (incl C# and F#) runs on Linux and MacOS, and people choose those languages over other languages because of their independent benefits (ie; C# has advantages over Java, and F# has advantages over Haskell/OCaml/etc).
I have not used them myself.
Bit of an aside, but TypeScript was invented at MSFT, and they still maintain it – why would it not count? (Other than not being a consumer product).
I have not used them myself.
Bit of an aside, but TypeScript was invented at MSFT, and they still maintain it – why would it not count? (Other than not being a consumer product).
> but TypeScript was invented at MSFT
Sure, but JavaScript was already there, so I don't look at it as a MSFT idea event though I agree it's technically a msft product.
Sure, but JavaScript was already there, so I don't look at it as a MSFT idea event though I agree it's technically a msft product.
And Lean, I think, not that I know how to use it, but it seems to be respected in its world.
I would add Windows kernel to that list. Overall seems pretty solid. DirectX 12 too. Visual Studio.
Excel, Vscode
I agree! Excel is fun to play with as long as you use it on windows, I forgot. VScode I only used in college, but it seems useful. I'll update my list, paint and excel I consider good products indeed.
It really is. It doesn’t even make a casual attempt to adhere to MacOS interface guidelines. Even the notification system is completely custom and doesn’t work with the OS level system.
It’s insulting.
It’s insulting.
They just rolled out the option for Mac native notifications. Of course it’s easy to miss the permissions request snd then you get no notifications at all.
Bravo ... discord client on Ubuntu has never crashed or sat there using 100% of cpu doing nothing unlike Teams
There’s Teams, Slack, and Discord… what else would you like to see from a competitor? Lemme guess, not Electron based?
How are we approaching 2022 and I still cannot click-to-reply in Teams?
Or alt+tab into Teams on macOS?
cmd+tab+alt - the shortcut for bringing the hidden window to foreground
best description i've heard of discord ux is that it feels like hanging out at a chuck-e-cheese
Not sure what that is meant to convey except scorn. Discord's UI works fine for lots of us and I don't see any relationship with Chuck-E-Cheese here.
it means it feels age-inappropriate for an adult to use, like hanging out at a children's arcade
Yeah, to me that is just conveying a total lack of awareness and tech snobbery. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of adults using Discord.
i do not use poggers emojis or anime girl reactions in my conversations, or chat on platforms where mods have the arbitrary power to destroy your chat history. if you want to, that's fine, but it does not feel like a platform meant for people like me -- it feels like a platform for children and gamers
Yeah this checks out for me. Some people at work were pushing to move from slack to discord and I've never felt more like an old man.
UX preferences aside, I think it's a really bad fit for businesses compared to slack, because it seems to also want to be social media, where you have one profile across servers, where slack and others are team-centric.
UX preferences aside, I think it's a really bad fit for businesses compared to slack, because it seems to also want to be social media, where you have one profile across servers, where slack and others are team-centric.
At least discord delivers your notifications properly. When I used slack it constantly dropped notifications.
Do I need to bust out the CS Lewis quote? This sounds like the attitude of a person entirely too concerned about how serious and mature everything around them is.
A killer use of Discord... push-to-talk audio connection to everyone else in the room.
If your team is on-call and incident management could be improved, just try putting your team in a Discord room and see what happens. Don't put managers in there, just the engineers.
It works great.
If your team is on-call and incident management could be improved, just try putting your team in a Discord room and see what happens. Don't put managers in there, just the engineers.
It works great.
I'd hardly call it a killer feature when it's something Teamspeak, etc have had for ages.
The killer feature, i.e that which sets it apart from the rest, is the rich text chat and that it's free.
I thought the killer feature is that it is free and convenient. No one has to do any work to setup a server like with Teamspeak or Ventrilo. It has been a long time since I played video games, but back then those were the two popular options.
[deleted]
> A killer use of Discord... push-to-talk audio connection to everyone else in the room.
Slack just added this recently: https://slack.com/intl/en-de/help/articles/4402059015315-Sta...
Slack just added this recently: https://slack.com/intl/en-de/help/articles/4402059015315-Sta...
I experience them as very different.
Huddles are more like the audio calls Slack already had, but without the channel notifications.
It lacks the auto silence that Discord has, so you can't just hang in a huddle waiting for someone to talk. There's a constant hiss.
I guess they might change it, but didn't sound like this was something they were even thinking of as an issue when I spoke with a representative.
Huddles are more like the audio calls Slack already had, but without the channel notifications.
It lacks the auto silence that Discord has, so you can't just hang in a huddle waiting for someone to talk. There's a constant hiss.
I guess they might change it, but didn't sound like this was something they were even thinking of as an issue when I spoke with a representative.
Telegram also added this a few months ago.
I despise discord. It's bloatware. It has constant popups that are difficult to disable.
I do read their tech posts on HN, and they are always fascinating. But it seems to me like a product that the MBAs have taken a over.
I do read their tech posts on HN, and they are always fascinating. But it seems to me like a product that the MBAs have taken a over.
Mind going into more details about the popups? Ive been using for years and cant say I've ever had a popup besides the occasional changelog.
This week they've been pushing some new Discord college spaces; asking me to connect my account to a .edu mail address. Believe I've seen the popup twice on my desktop, and once on mobile.
I actually did get that too on desktop. It is a bit annoying but not enough for me to call it bloatware.
Yea so if you install it, it will harass you about 'going live' everytine you launch a fullscreen app. Then it puts some box in the corner (sorry cannot remember what it said)
You can disable it per application of course... But I just wanted it gone.
Also it makes incessant beeping noises, which again can only be disabled per room.
You can disable it per application of course... But I just wanted it gone.
Also it makes incessant beeping noises, which again can only be disabled per room.
Um, what? I don't think either of those things have ever happened to me (unless you're talking about join/leave noises on the rooms?). Are you sure you're talking about Discord?
Too bad their users in particular aren't the kind to be open minded to other platforms, they just follow the crowd. As an answer to the headline, they'll fail in their attempts to gain in other avenues because not everyone is a follower like gamers are.
I can only speak to my own experience here, but I use Discord because:
- It's easy to onboard non-technical users.
- It has a huge existing user-base.
- It's feature-rich but with good UX so it doesn't feel overwhelming.
- Voice calls are consistently high quality, even with people that have bad connections.
Gamers have a history of amplifying each others' displeasure with things; if the platform wasn't better than the alternatives (TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, Mumble, etc.) they wouldn't be using it.
- It's easy to onboard non-technical users.
- It has a huge existing user-base.
- It's feature-rich but with good UX so it doesn't feel overwhelming.
- Voice calls are consistently high quality, even with people that have bad connections.
Gamers have a history of amplifying each others' displeasure with things; if the platform wasn't better than the alternatives (TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, Mumble, etc.) they wouldn't be using it.
Could you name at least two other platforms that offer at least
Decent chat (file sharing, emojis, support for code snippets), decent voice chat, decent streaming and supports PUSH2TALK button? and I personally prefer when it is not self-hosted due to DDoS risk
Because I'm unable to name and that's why I started using Discord
Decent chat (file sharing, emojis, support for code snippets), decent voice chat, decent streaming and supports PUSH2TALK button? and I personally prefer when it is not self-hosted due to DDoS risk
Because I'm unable to name and that's why I started using Discord
That's a bit strange. Aside from the rare changelog or new features, I only get any popups when I log into it from a new machine, or through private mode. Mostly using the desktop version, mobile occasionally.
I can't remember where I read it (likely Joel Spolsky, or Paul Graham), but there was an article about businesses that thrive in the shadow of FAANG + MS and others because even though they're in the same business they don't compete in a way that's worth the big guys chasing.
In this case, MS Teams is obsessed with Office integration as it's key selling point. Which in turn means business workers. Whereas Discord users don't care about calendar integration and so on.
Modern chat apps are a Venn diagram with a modest intersection.
I can't see how Discord can get more users without losing original users. Basically, a demographic shift. And then you're in the big guys territory where they additionally have 'killer features' already and that's where businesses get bought or fold.
In this case, MS Teams is obsessed with Office integration as it's key selling point. Which in turn means business workers. Whereas Discord users don't care about calendar integration and so on.
Modern chat apps are a Venn diagram with a modest intersection.
I can't see how Discord can get more users without losing original users. Basically, a demographic shift. And then you're in the big guys territory where they additionally have 'killer features' already and that's where businesses get bought or fold.
This reminds me of the 'Law of Line Extension'[0].
What I think they can successfully do, is rebrand as a new product (Accord is a name that might suit it, given the nature of office communications), disassociate any gamer connections, and link it to Discord by adding an account switcher.
[0]: https://ericsink.com/laws/Law_12.html
What I think they can successfully do, is rebrand as a new product (Accord is a name that might suit it, given the nature of office communications), disassociate any gamer connections, and link it to Discord by adding an account switcher.
[0]: https://ericsink.com/laws/Law_12.html
I actually care a lot about calendar integration. For about two years I've been saying that our best hope for calendar software that doesn't suck is if Discord gets into it, and it's a natural fit - most of the discords I'm in have some sort of regular scheduled activity, gamers want to schedule when they can game together.
You might want to check Guilded (https://guilded.gg)
I wouldn't be entirely sure. Discord communities are much more isolated than on other social media sites. Outside discoverability, which is pretty poor you don't end up seeing what is going on even on other public servers. So if they continue to deliver good enough product to gamers and then entice other communities to join it could work very well.
If Discord wants to win me over, they need to adjust their layout & themes. The default dark mode and the light mode both are not comfortable to me, and I'm someone that likes the default Slack theme or irssi/weechat in terminal on a black background.
I hope not, I don't like the tiny realm vibe I get on discord servers. I find it too stiff and less friendly than most webirc sites (i know irc is not 10% of discord in terms of features but even then I find the added bonuses aren't worth that negative feeling.)
What do you mean by "tiny realm vibe"?
Are you on mostly smaller servers, or is it unrelated to server size?
You can definitely port the crushing silence/violent turmoil dichotomy of a large freenode room to Discord with enough users.
Are you on mostly smaller servers, or is it unrelated to server size?
You can definitely port the crushing silence/violent turmoil dichotomy of a large freenode room to Discord with enough users.
So often on discord i feel a vibe of "its our place our rules" something I never sensed on irc. People kick you blind at the first polite disagreement. IRC doesn't breed this to this extent even on the worst Channels I ran into. And o irc, kicks happen if someone abuses others a lot. Not if you voice a different opinion (again politely)
Hence my belief that discord makes people built tiny castles way too stiff.
Hence my belief that discord makes people built tiny castles way too stiff.
to add a little, on IRC i often have a feeling I'm joining a topic, on discord I feel like joining a brand
people dont feel like they own #anxiety on freenode for instance..
people dont feel like they own #anxiety on freenode for instance..
Many software development communities are on Discord. General purpose ones as well as specific ones. There's one for Vue and a wannabe-official C#/.NET one (that's also pretty toxic unfortunately), and ones for other big frameworks and languages.
Discord can thank GitLab there. Gitter had pretty much conquered that entire space before its acquisition.
Interesting I didn't know this
Matrix or death.
Matrix is miles behind discord which saddens me. It's a good UI but to consider them in the same ballpark is pretty uncomparable to me
> Matrix is miles behind discord which saddens me.
In which way? Discord is miles behind Matrix in terms of privacy features. It does not even support e2ee for PMs or self-hosted servers or federation. They probably don't even plan to implement that ever.
That's an instant knockout for Discord for me. There is no way that I willingly let companies read my private communication in 2021 after everything that we learned over the last couple of years. No amount of nice productivity features can compensate for that.
In which way? Discord is miles behind Matrix in terms of privacy features. It does not even support e2ee for PMs or self-hosted servers or federation. They probably don't even plan to implement that ever.
That's an instant knockout for Discord for me. There is no way that I willingly let companies read my private communication in 2021 after everything that we learned over the last couple of years. No amount of nice productivity features can compensate for that.
For the average person who isn't as concerned about privacy, Discord is absolutely light years ahead. Personally, I don't mind that Discord doesn't have E2EE or self hosted servers, I think having those would severely degrade the experience. Discord works so well because it's unified and /I don't have to screw around with somebody's poorly self-hosted server on their rural internet. If I want to send top secret messages to people I'll just use Signal.
> the average person who isn't as concerned about privacy
I think the average person does indeed care about privacy, otherwise we would use public bank accounts and would get rid of passwords, curtains and summer clothing.
Most likely, most people do not fully understand all implications of all technical details and aren't making fully informed decisions.
I think the average person does indeed care about privacy, otherwise we would use public bank accounts and would get rid of passwords, curtains and summer clothing.
Most likely, most people do not fully understand all implications of all technical details and aren't making fully informed decisions.
Only if you cleverly conflate social privacy with data privacy and conflate security with privacy.
Ask someone how much they care that their bank details are known to the machines at Intuit when they setup their Mint account, or how much they care that random bank employees can see & manage their entire financial life when they call customer support or visit a teller.
Ask them how much they care that some machine somewhere in a Google datacenter is running an algorithm on every email they get.
In my experience, most people just want to keep parts of their lives private from people they know. They will upload nudes to iCloud and make jokes about FBI agents finding them.
Ask someone how much they care that their bank details are known to the machines at Intuit when they setup their Mint account, or how much they care that random bank employees can see & manage their entire financial life when they call customer support or visit a teller.
Ask them how much they care that some machine somewhere in a Google datacenter is running an algorithm on every email they get.
In my experience, most people just want to keep parts of their lives private from people they know. They will upload nudes to iCloud and make jokes about FBI agents finding them.
The 'average person' is not uncommonly switching to Matrix. Even non-technically savvy people are asking how to do it following Apple's PR disaster.
You clearly don't understand Matrix. Dendrite introduces a hybrid-P2P model, ergo home servers become largely irrelevant, and portable identities become a thing.
Can Discord work offline P2P via Bluetooth LE? Nope.
You clearly don't understand Matrix. Dendrite introduces a hybrid-P2P model, ergo home servers become largely irrelevant, and portable identities become a thing.
Can Discord work offline P2P via Bluetooth LE? Nope.
You live in a bubble. Nobody I know has ever heard of matrix, and that's including the tech people.
No, I live in the UK where everyday 'normies' are becoming increasingly concerned about privacy and overreach by big-tech.
I can only speak as I find it.
I can only speak as I find it.
I rarely chat with people close enough to just talk to them IRL. Though I think it has merit and good use in some areas, like during HK protests, I heard Briar was used for local p2p chats.
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> In which way? Discord is miles behind Matrix in terms of privacy features. It does not even support e2ee for PMs or self-hosted servers or federation. They probably don't even plan to implement that ever.
I actually laughed out loud as I read this.
I mean I'm sure you're not wrong, it's just that vanishingly few people do or will care about self-hosted servers or federation. Hell, if anything those would be anti-selling points, since it almost invariably complicates the UX, especially for initial setup.
I actually laughed out loud as I read this.
I mean I'm sure you're not wrong, it's just that vanishingly few people do or will care about self-hosted servers or federation. Hell, if anything those would be anti-selling points, since it almost invariably complicates the UX, especially for initial setup.
Matrix is a protocol, not a UI. There are many Matrix clients with vastly different UIs and UX. To distil Matrix down to a 'UI' is missing the entire point of Matrix. It is like email, it will inevitably become ubiquitous. 35m users so far: https://element.io/blog/element-raises-30m-as-matrix-explode...
There's a reason that governments, militaries and healthcare systems are choosing Matrix over Discord!
I've bridged all my other messaging apps to Matrix, now I just need a single messaging app. I even get my SMS via Matrix. Can Discord do that? Nope. If it could, would you trust it? Probably not.
There's a reason that governments, militaries and healthcare systems are choosing Matrix over Discord!
I've bridged all my other messaging apps to Matrix, now I just need a single messaging app. I even get my SMS via Matrix. Can Discord do that? Nope. If it could, would you trust it? Probably not.
> Can Discord do that? Nope.
I use discord to relay in game chat from the game Everquest to my phone. Surely it can relay other types of text, too.
I use discord to relay in game chat from the game Everquest to my phone. Surely it can relay other types of text, too.
I had very high hopes for matrix because of the bridging capabilities but I was sorely disappointed after spending a couple hours to set it all up. Some of the bridges require violating the TOS for other applications, or going into the dev tools to copy cookies. Basically completely unapproachable for non-programmers. Once you have a bridge it's impossible to start a new chat with someone in another app. You need to start the chat in the other app, wait for the matrix bridge to be notified of the chat, and then you can continue the conversation in matrix.
Of course it breaches plenty of ToS, they're third-party bridges for Matrix that are developed by people within the community. Do you really think that big corps are going to be happy about people not seeing ads? Of course not, ergo there are ToS clauses there to discourage people from doing so.
For non-programmers, there are cheap turn-key SaaS. Look at Beeper for example: https://www.beeper.com/
You also don't need to start the chat in another app, that's complete and utter bollocks, regardless of whether you use SaaS like Beeper, or your own home server.
I'll check back in with you in 5 years and we can laugh at each other: @hammy:matrix.splitanatom.com :- )
For non-programmers, there are cheap turn-key SaaS. Look at Beeper for example: https://www.beeper.com/
You also don't need to start the chat in another app, that's complete and utter bollocks, regardless of whether you use SaaS like Beeper, or your own home server.
I'll check back in with you in 5 years and we can laugh at each other: @hammy:matrix.splitanatom.com :- )
I bridge Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram and you can absolutely start chats through the bridge bot. It might be a little inconvenient, but for the rare occasion I do need it, it works absolutely fine.
Matrix is a good protocol but the apps were meh!
> you have unverified logins
> verify this session
> please backup your keys
D'Arvit!
First time I've heard someone use "D'Arvit" on a tech forum... wonder how many readers here still recognise it.
I'd say most people who have picked up a popular book in the last 20 years.
Sworn off Discord since I discovered it's really hard to get your chat logs out https://youtu.be/wA1aaIA27Iw
FWIW one data point - we had begun beforehand but especially when COVID started, the small company I work at moved nearly all our company communication into Discord.
We tried out Slack and other alternatives at the time and the huge advantage of Discord was how simple and playful it was while other solutions were so very enterprise-y.
Plus, Discord offers a great bot API, so it was super easy to write our own integrations. We are very happy Discord was not bought by Microsoft.
We tried out Slack and other alternatives at the time and the huge advantage of Discord was how simple and playful it was while other solutions were so very enterprise-y.
Plus, Discord offers a great bot API, so it was super easy to write our own integrations. We are very happy Discord was not bought by Microsoft.
As a personal user, I'd give Discord more money if high-resolution streaming and higher bitrates etc. were a bit cheaper, and I could buy credit which using these features ate through, instead of having to pay an overly expensive subscription.
As a frequent user of the PC client, I think it's a bloated mess which gets slower by the day (with poor UX to boot). And they're talking about expanding their market? It's clear what their priorities are.
I kind of like this, assuming they don't change their software too much(or at all).
Discords voice channels are the perfect replacement for "watercooler conversations" for the remote working age.
Discords voice channels are the perfect replacement for "watercooler conversations" for the remote working age.
They have a lot of issues if they "want everybody else on Discord" They cancelled an account of mine because it shared a phone number with a secondary account of mine. (1 for work; 1 for personal use.) Support said "Account ban is valid - FRAUD/SPAM" with no ability to have a conversation with them or escalate. My cellphone number is now blacklisted for SMS validation. Incredibly weird. No support for their products, not really.
If they wants everybody else, let's start by adding the "hide my cam/stream" option, and adding a background blur feature.
I use teams at work. I hadn’t used discord much but then did for a hackthebox CTF.
I found discord way better for work that involves dynamic collaboration ie where folk are often working individually or jumping into each other’s streams to work together.
To achieve something similar in teams we have an open all day meeting that people pop into but it’s sub par vs the discord model.
I found discord way better for work that involves dynamic collaboration ie where folk are often working individually or jumping into each other’s streams to work together.
To achieve something similar in teams we have an open all day meeting that people pop into but it’s sub par vs the discord model.
I've never used Discord for gaming, but I've used it extensively in the maker hobby for various groups. I don't see it as being well aligned for business use, and any changes to make it better aligned for business use would damage it's ability to serve hobbyists (and gamers). I don't think this is a good move.
Yea, it would be refreshing for a company to say, we nailed this product, we are going to now just refine it more and more perfectly to streamline it even more. But instead everyone wants to cram more things into it. The old saying was that a SAAS product isn't complete until it has it's own email server baked into it.
They refused $12bn takeover bid from Microsoft?! That's brave.
Not they are worth $15bn? It is crazy valuation for the chat app that's basically gaming version of Slack. I always thought Slack would purchase Discord and make it its "Gaming division" chat app.
Not they are worth $15bn? It is crazy valuation for the chat app that's basically gaming version of Slack. I always thought Slack would purchase Discord and make it its "Gaming division" chat app.
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Forget about using Discord if you use a wireless carrier that uses VOIP (like Republic Wireless, for example). Discord will not let you authenticate. Their answer is "change carriers", but I don't need Discord all that much.
Having never use Discord - what is the elevator pitch for why I would want to use it?
Programmers like Discord too. There are many great programming communities there.
Discord has also joined the ranks of tech companies censoring speech. Which essentially means they can and have eavesdropped on various groups and closed groups. No thank you.
Discord is big tech, and a decentralized solution is better.
I feel like in order to campfire business users, they would have to rebrand. Discord is a cool name for gamers, but maybe not for your average business person.
Slack does not seem like it would be good name for business use as well, and yet tons of businesses use it.
It's incredible that two of the front-runner chat programs in 2021 are called Slack and Discord, yet neither name is, AFAIK, related to or inspired by the Church of the Subgenius or Discordianism in any way.
What I find amusing is that both of the names, intentionally or not, are related to mock-religions.
It isn't just the name.
At least they're not called GIMP in all caps
This is the part of the thread where we bikeshed a bit over the name of an app.
Hey man hop on Discord, let’s go over some brain MRIs!
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We're using it for work. It's serving us better than Team or Zoom did and it's free.
I love that I can adjust individual people’s volume in discord. Afaik I can’t in zoom.
Discord is OK. Nothing groundbreaking. But the tech stack is rock solid.
Discord has also won most crypto development/support communities.
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Disclaimer - I can't read the article; paywalled(and I don't care enough to bypass it).
That said, will discord lose those initial advocates - gamers - in the process? They're already cracking down on NSFW channels, and constantly making things less convenient and more locked down in their pursuit of the general public.
That said, will discord lose those initial advocates - gamers - in the process? They're already cracking down on NSFW channels, and constantly making things less convenient and more locked down in their pursuit of the general public.
Once again showing that a shitty interface isn't a problem if you can just advertise the right way.
They won their market share with their early demographics by being a better product flat out. Whether the visual design is to your taste or not, you’re fooling yourself about the reason for their success.
I feel like a boomer when it comes to discord because lots of niche information, utilities, mods, and discussions that I used to google search for and find on forums and subreddits have moved to discord servers and as a non social gamer I find it chaotic and cluttered. I suppose it's different for people who grew up using it to play games with their friends as it became their go-to community tool.
For example if I want the latest info on the state of installing a certain linux distro on macbooks with T2 chips I have to open discord and figure out which unlabeled icon on the left out of dozens of servers I'm in that I visit infrequently has the information I'm looking for. I don't use the servers often enough to memorize their "logo" so it would be helpful if I could see names there. If I want to report a bug in a VR app the only way to be sure the developer sees it is to again dig through those dozens of unlabeled server icons then figure out which of the many text channels I have to put my question in. If I want to be notified when Nvidia cards are in stock at Best Buy I have to find the drop server, find the channel with the pinned message and click on the right "reaction" emoji. I'm not sure why the new generation prefers this format but it is what it is, no harder than digging through IRC channels and usenet but not much of a better experience, personally.
For example if I want the latest info on the state of installing a certain linux distro on macbooks with T2 chips I have to open discord and figure out which unlabeled icon on the left out of dozens of servers I'm in that I visit infrequently has the information I'm looking for. I don't use the servers often enough to memorize their "logo" so it would be helpful if I could see names there. If I want to report a bug in a VR app the only way to be sure the developer sees it is to again dig through those dozens of unlabeled server icons then figure out which of the many text channels I have to put my question in. If I want to be notified when Nvidia cards are in stock at Best Buy I have to find the drop server, find the channel with the pinned message and click on the right "reaction" emoji. I'm not sure why the new generation prefers this format but it is what it is, no harder than digging through IRC channels and usenet but not much of a better experience, personally.
I quite prefer discord over lots of other solutions (slack or zoom). But their place as a forum is interesting and you make an excellent point for the concern that it pushing lots of good content out of the public web and into private spaces. I wonder if discord could add a feature that publishes chat logs in a way that could be crawled by search engines.
for me its just like irc. irc was used to organize tech and gaming communities for years and years and was not really more user friendly or organized.
Windows is still relevant too. Average people don't care about UX it seems.
And what is the competition there outside Mac? I haven't yet felt at any time that Linux offered superior UX experience. Maybe I'm too used to Windows...
Maybe you are. Modern Linux desktops are nothing like they have been not to long ago. Personally I can't even imagine more productivity win than gnome shell.
That's a complaint I keep hearing. But the reason I switched to discord in the first place was because I loved the interface.
Both in terms of usability and aesthetics.
Makes me wonder why there is such a gap in how people rate their interface.
I'm pretty happy with the interface, with a couple exceptions:
1) I'd like to be able to collapse, or reposition, the right panel (the one with the users in it).
2) I'd like to be able to have multiple channels open at once. This one is probably my biggest complaint. It's frustrating having to frequently click back and forth between different channels in a server.
I'm sure I could find more things to complain about if those were resolved, but those two changes would make me content with the UI.
Give me some other themes too, I suppose. Maybe a really dark one.
1) I'd like to be able to collapse, or reposition, the right panel (the one with the users in it).
2) I'd like to be able to have multiple channels open at once. This one is probably my biggest complaint. It's frustrating having to frequently click back and forth between different channels in a server.
I'm sure I could find more things to complain about if those were resolved, but those two changes would make me content with the UI.
Give me some other themes too, I suppose. Maybe a really dark one.
You can collapse the user list. Click the icon to the left of the search box in the header bar.
I initially found discord UI a little confusing, not sure why. I use it all the time for work, and the layout is essentially the same as slacks. Admining servers is much nicer with discord.
Slack learned us to join and leave channels on purpose. This is something I totally miss with discord. There is always EVERYTHING at once hammering at me. For me a definitely not work friendly environment because it builds on distractions.
I guess it depends on your setup, but for me, based on your role, you're automatically part of all the channels that are relevant to you. You can mute channels if they become distracting and aren't relevant. I find this way better, as when we get new people they are instantly part of everything they will care about. When we had slack, I found I had to force join people to channels because they wouldn't know to go particular channels.
I think it is possible to do this with roles and bot managing those. Ofc, that is not standard solution.
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I really dislike discord (slack for zoomers) and slack (discord for boomers). They are so bloated, messy and ugly. I still prefer email. The good side of discord and slack is that they are SO easy to ignore, and it was awesome when some of the groups i work with switched to them: the quantity of my email decreased significantly. By never checking them, I might miss a couple of things, but nothing worth the hassle.