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The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community. Why put all that hard work and time into a corporate-c

The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community. Why put all that hard work and time into a corporate-controlled platform that can lock you out of it anytime they want? How do people feel ok taking such a big risk? Why not use an open protocol like Matrix (or IRC if you're savvy) to form your community?

vouaobrasil 4y ago
It's just because other people are there and it's a trend. That is why most people do things.
Suzuran 4y ago
Having experience with both, the big win with Discord vs. self-hosted services is that I don't have to directly fight the losing war/arms race vs. organized spam.
zarzavat 4y ago
What alternative is there that has: screen sharing, voice calls, all your friends across every community in one DM list, meaning that you can make group chats across communities?
- ctrlmeta 4y ago
  But once the company locks me out, I would neither have screen sharing nor video calls nor the DM list. Isn't it better to just use Matrix which may have less features but those features I can rely on for a long time without the risk of being locked out?
  - the_lonely_road 4y ago
    Some people refuse to get in the ocean for fear of being killed by a shark. Most people swim, boat, surf, parasail, etc and enjoy that aspect of their life without more than the most casual thought of sharks. Neither group is right but one group has a much more enriched life…assuming they don’t get eaten by a shark of course.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Not enough people get locked out for this to matter to the public opinion
  - paulcole 4y ago
    Maybe (like most people), you never get locked out. You can be stubborn and rely on a platform your audience/community probably doesn’t want to use and have a very steep uphill battle to success. Or you can take a risk and rely on a platform you don’t own and have a (somewhat) less steep uphill battle to success. If the platform is good enough and the benefits of using it are significant enough, people are going to take the risk. See: App Store development, selling on Amazon instead of your own e-commerce store, etc.
ajkjk 4y ago
Most people don't care about anything you mentioned.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
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bruce343434 4y ago
They really, honestly, don't think it would happen to them. It's not a risk to them in their brains.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Well, statistically, it's probably not a significant enough probability to be a risk worth acting on
bodge5000 4y ago
Unless your whole friend group/community also cares about that, you'll have a hard time steering them towards alternatives. Even in cases where the product itself is better, privacy and control aside.
haunter 4y ago
>The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community Free dedicated voice chat with rich text chat. It was meant to take on Teamspeak, Ventrilo, Mumble etc. And it successfully did. >or IRC if you're savvy Totally different use case, not even comparable
- mavhc 4y ago
  Typing to people you don't really know on the internet? Seems the same use case
  - haunter 4y ago
    You can voice chat on IRC?
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    Instantaneous creation of a server with an RBAC GUI, multiple text and voice chat rooms, voice chat, screen share, app share(game streaming), and for clients, a GUI that allows people to view the status of other servers while participating in one. Again, it's made for voice/screen/streaming share, not primarily text.
    - mavhc 4y ago
      Weirdly, every server I'm on is primarily text. I'm in multiple text chat rooms on multiple servers in irc though.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - andrewinardeer 4y ago
      I respect your view and can see your point. May I counter that Discord effectively proprietarised the open standard that is IRC and then put all the bells and whistles such as shared screen streaming, voice chat etc on top? Similar to how WhatsApp proprietarised XMPP. Even the niche Discord servers have managed to replicate the community feel of the early to mid 1990's IRC channels. That's how I see it. You are welcome to disagree.
Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
Most people want someone else to deal with the hassle. Most people don't want to run their own server(s), so even if people did use IRC or Matrix those people would host their community on servers that are controlled by others who could lock you out of it anytime they wanted. > How do people feel ok taking such a big risk? Well for most people they don't see the risks involved and those who are aware of the risks don't believe it will ever happen to them. Just look at Google accounts as an example. People use Gmail, get themselves locked out of them, and lose pretty much all their digital lives all the time but people still happily rely on Gmail. Some quickly Googled stats about Gmail (take these number with a pinch of salt cause I've not looked into whats supporting these numbers - https://techjury.net/blog/gmail-statistics/ https://techjury.net/blog/gmail-statistics/ ) > Gmail remains the most popular email platform with over 1.8 billion users worldwide. > As of April 2022, Gmail holds 29.5% of the email client market share. > Gmail accounts for 27% of all email opens. > 75% of all Gmail users access their email on mobile devices. > 61% of 18-29-year-olds use Gmail.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
Matrix is great, but does not immediately have a web interface, and this may push back some users. It is not that it is difficult to use a client (though the authentication i snot obvious - but then I had to think hard about Discord authentication/servers/invitations as well) but everyone is used to have a web interface and mobile clients to start with.
- Ardon 4y ago
  You can link people directly to https://app.element.io/ https://app.element.io/ But there's definitely a lower barrier to entry with Discord right now, maybe forever. But maybe there just needs to be time to push through the network effect of discord. I'm vaguely optimistic, I'm seeing Matrix more and more often these days. Still in nerd circles, of course.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > but does not immediately have a web interface I only communicate on Matrix through a web interface.
gigaflop 4y ago
Discoed does a lot of things 'right' for a lot of people. For gamers, Discord became a no-brainer after not much time. Click to create a server for some friends, send out some invites, and that's pretty much all you need. Built-in game overlay settings, voice chat, and screen sharing. Text and voice channels. Compare this to the old TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble era, where you'd need to actually manage the installation, and tell people how to connect. Discord makes it braindead-easy to get started, and the risks you're talking about affect less than 10% of the userbase, probably. Until a more-open platform provides a better experience, Discord will be here to stay among the masses.
EamonnMR 4y ago
People will do anything for the tiniest drop of illusionary power and will take the shortest path to it.
namlem 4y ago
Discord has a ton of useful features. It's a very powerful application.
hotgeart 4y ago
Same for Youtube, Twitch or else. Because the ppl are there, and it's easier and gives you the spotlight at no cost.

vouaobrasil 4y ago

It's just because other people are there and it's a trend. That is why most people do things.

Suzuran 4y ago

Having experience with both, the big win with Discord vs. self-hosted services is that I don't have to directly fight the losing war/arms race vs. organized spam.

zarzavat 4y ago

What alternative is there that has: screen sharing, voice calls, all your friends across every community in one DM list, meaning that you can make group chats across communities?

ctrlmeta 4y ago
But once the company locks me out, I would neither have screen sharing nor video calls nor the DM list. Isn't it better to just use Matrix which may have less features but those features I can rely on for a long time without the risk of being locked out?
- the_lonely_road 4y ago
  Some people refuse to get in the ocean for fear of being killed by a shark. Most people swim, boat, surf, parasail, etc and enjoy that aspect of their life without more than the most casual thought of sharks. Neither group is right but one group has a much more enriched life…assuming they don’t get eaten by a shark of course.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Not enough people get locked out for this to matter to the public opinion
- paulcole 4y ago
  Maybe (like most people), you never get locked out. You can be stubborn and rely on a platform your audience/community probably doesn’t want to use and have a very steep uphill battle to success. Or you can take a risk and rely on a platform you don’t own and have a (somewhat) less steep uphill battle to success. If the platform is good enough and the benefits of using it are significant enough, people are going to take the risk. See: App Store development, selling on Amazon instead of your own e-commerce store, etc.

ajkjk 4y ago

Most people don't care about anything you mentioned.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bruce343434 4y ago

They really, honestly, don't think it would happen to them. It's not a risk to them in their brains.

bowsamic 4y ago
Well, statistically, it's probably not a significant enough probability to be a risk worth acting on

bodge5000 4y ago

Unless your whole friend group/community also cares about that, you'll have a hard time steering them towards alternatives. Even in cases where the product itself is better, privacy and control aside.

haunter 4y ago

>The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community Free dedicated voice chat with rich text chat. It was meant to take on Teamspeak, Ventrilo, Mumble etc. And it successfully did. >or IRC if you're savvy Totally different use case, not even comparable

mavhc 4y ago
Typing to people you don't really know on the internet? Seems the same use case
- haunter 4y ago
  You can voice chat on IRC?
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Instantaneous creation of a server with an RBAC GUI, multiple text and voice chat rooms, voice chat, screen share, app share(game streaming), and for clients, a GUI that allows people to view the status of other servers while participating in one. Again, it's made for voice/screen/streaming share, not primarily text.
  - mavhc 4y ago
    Weirdly, every server I'm on is primarily text. I'm in multiple text chat rooms on multiple servers in irc though.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - andrewinardeer 4y ago
    I respect your view and can see your point. May I counter that Discord effectively proprietarised the open standard that is IRC and then put all the bells and whistles such as shared screen streaming, voice chat etc on top? Similar to how WhatsApp proprietarised XMPP. Even the niche Discord servers have managed to replicate the community feel of the early to mid 1990's IRC channels. That's how I see it. You are welcome to disagree.

Crosseye_Jack 4y ago

Most people want someone else to deal with the hassle. Most people don't want to run their own server(s), so even if people did use IRC or Matrix those people would host their community on servers that are controlled by others who could lock you out of it anytime they wanted. > How do people feel ok taking such a big risk? Well for most people they don't see the risks involved and those who are aware of the risks don't believe it will ever happen to them. Just look at Google accounts as an example. People use Gmail, get themselves locked out of them, and lose pretty much all their digital lives all the time but people still happily rely on Gmail. Some quickly Googled stats about Gmail (take these number with a pinch of salt cause I've not looked into whats supporting these numbers - https://techjury.net/blog/gmail-statistics/ https://techjury.net/blog/gmail-statistics/ ) > Gmail remains the most popular email platform with over 1.8 billion users worldwide. > As of April 2022, Gmail holds 29.5% of the email client market share. > Gmail accounts for 27% of all email opens. > 75% of all Gmail users access their email on mobile devices. > 61% of 18-29-year-olds use Gmail.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

Matrix is great, but does not immediately have a web interface, and this may push back some users. It is not that it is difficult to use a client (though the authentication i snot obvious - but then I had to think hard about Discord authentication/servers/invitations as well) but everyone is used to have a web interface and mobile clients to start with.

Ardon 4y ago
You can link people directly to https://app.element.io/ https://app.element.io/ But there's definitely a lower barrier to entry with Discord right now, maybe forever. But maybe there just needs to be time to push through the network effect of discord. I'm vaguely optimistic, I'm seeing Matrix more and more often these days. Still in nerd circles, of course.
vel0city 4y ago
> but does not immediately have a web interface I only communicate on Matrix through a web interface.

gigaflop 4y ago

Discoed does a lot of things 'right' for a lot of people. For gamers, Discord became a no-brainer after not much time. Click to create a server for some friends, send out some invites, and that's pretty much all you need. Built-in game overlay settings, voice chat, and screen sharing. Text and voice channels. Compare this to the old TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble era, where you'd need to actually manage the installation, and tell people how to connect. Discord makes it braindead-easy to get started, and the risks you're talking about affect less than 10% of the userbase, probably. Until a more-open platform provides a better experience, Discord will be here to stay among the masses.

EamonnMR 4y ago

People will do anything for the tiniest drop of illusionary power and will take the shortest path to it.

namlem 4y ago

Discord has a ton of useful features. It's a very powerful application.

hotgeart 4y ago

Same for Youtube, Twitch or else. Because the ppl are there, and it's easier and gives you the spotlight at no cost.