Co-founder Jason Citron is stepping down, but will remain with the company as a member of the board of directors.

  • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    4 days ago

    My friends and I can always find 50 other apps for voice chatting, texting and screen sharing. What pisses me off royally is the thousands of companies/groups that decided instead of making forums or websites or GitHub pages, they would just host EVERYTHING from within Discord’s walled garden.

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 days ago

      While it sucks for us users, I do hope discord will continue to get more and more shit and force these losers who chose to host documentation on Discord to rethink their choices.

    • Scary le Poo@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      The thing is that discord has fostered fantastic communities in the way that forums never could have. I have personally witnessed no less than 5 communities that are thriving due to primarily using discord. Their forums were an utter shit show.

      The fact that you can’t seem to understand why people have done this means that you do not understand the fundamental issue at hand.

  • whodatdair@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    66
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    This whole “spend a ton of money to get your foothold, take over a market, then enshittify to bilk the users” shtik is getting very very old.

    • Emmaaa (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      Deutsch
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 days ago

      Might finally open the doors for viable alternatives. If Spacebar (former fosscord) garners tractions for example due to mismanagement by discord they might make the transition over from discord to an open source, decentralized alternative for the everyday discord user viable. Although I haven’t tried Matrix in a while… But convincing users to switch to a completely separate service is way more difficult.

  • 🦊 OneRedFox 🦊@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    4 days ago

    And so the hell-loop continues. Matrix seems like the closest successor, but having used it for awhile I would describe the experience as janky-but-workable. Signal’s good, but requires a phone number. I hear that Mumble’s good, but it’s overly focused on VoIP. Hopefully the alternatives polish themselves up before the enshittification gets too bad.

    • biteychan@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 days ago

      I use Matrix, but like a lot of the Fediverse (I know it’s technically a different protocol, but still), it’s not normie friendly. If it were more plug n play it might take off. I just don’t look forward to when they’ll have ads or start making us pay. It’s so tiring shuffling from platform to platform because of some greedy CEO.

    • Kichae@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 days ago

      There’s a huge opportunity not just for Matrix, but also for other open source or distributed players here, if they can move quickly enough.

      They won’t, though.

        • nixnoodle@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          4 days ago

          I also thought you could create an account without your phone number nowadays, but since I already have a phone-connected account, I haven’t tested. Only thing I found in their blog was this: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/

          Until now, someone needed to know your phone number to reach you on Signal. Now, you can connect on Signal without needing to hand out your phone number. (You will still need a phone number to register for Signal.) This is where usernames come in.

          There are some newer post about other changes, but I haven’t checked them in detail.

  • Dae@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    3 days ago

    Great time to plug that https://revolt.chat/ is coming along nicely! The Android app is being reworked and is in rough shape at the moment, but the biggest feature missing from the desktop app (where I figure it matters most) is screen sharing. Otherwise it’s an entirely serviceable Discord clone that is FOSS and would benefit greatly from additional support. I, for one, will be taking the money that was paying for my Nitro and donating it to Revolt instead.

        • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          2 days ago

          They are working on it: https://github.com/orgs/revoltchat/discussions/597

          Also we disagree as not all groups on even discord are public since many require invites or accepting requests to join.

          Edit: Also, even if they are public I’d rather the server not be able to see my messages even if the users in any given group can. Yes, I know it’s a minor difference but I can probably trust the other users, I cannot necessarily trust the server.

      • Dae@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        3 days ago

        The desktop app has a donation button in the settings. There’s also links to their donation pages on their github, but I do think in both instances they should have their donation link more front and center; it’s proven to work out well for multiple other FOSS projects.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 days ago

      Did they fix the self-hosted option? If it works well, I would immediately jump to it.

      • Dae@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 days ago

        I don’t believe so, and honestly I don’t think it needs to be. It’s already FOSS. And honestly self-hosting would just complicate the process more for normies who apparently can’t figure out Mastodon as it is. Maybe if we have at lest one thing that’s dummy simple and familiar that’s FOSS, maybe it’ll be the foot in the door to getting them more comfortable with the FOSS world and out of the corporate sphere.

        And honestly I just really want my friends off of fucking Discord, and the more Revolt continues to literally, in every way be “Discord but open source,” the better the odds of that happening is.

        • Allero@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 days ago

          Whenever there is a single party controlling critical infrastructure, there is a potential for enshittification - even if it starts as a FOSS endeavor.

          Ability to self-host a full copy of the service is the best protection we have so far.

          • Dae@pawb.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            3 days ago

            While that’s true, the nature of it being FOSS also ensures the potential for forking and going our own way. So for right now, maybe it’s better that it’s not self-hosted, long enough to get a large number of Discord users on-board, then fork it if it does enshittify and make the fork self-hosted. At the very least, again, this is an opportunity to get a large number of normies to see the value of FOSS projects and enter the FOSS world. And that has immense value not just for Revolt, but for the FOSS world as a whole.

              • Dae@pawb.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                3 days ago

                And I do see yours as well! I agree self-hosting gas greater resistance to devs going rogue when all the hosts can just stop participating. But the beauty of Open Source is that if it’s ever truly so bad, the project can always just fork.

    • dangling_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      4 days ago

      Because he “has experience managing a public company” and in his portfolio only focuses on cherry-picked KPIs and no mention of any negatives at all.

      I hate that our society encourages failing up and instead of punishment because of poor management skills and decisions, they do mass layoffs and give themselves fat bonuses because of “cost savings”.

      Frankly, if a company fails, they will ruin other companies; it’s never their fault because of “complicated reasons”.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 days ago

      Probably the point, honestly. If they lose money from it, at least they made it worse for the cattle who stuck with it!

      • Ofiuco@lemmy.cafe
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        4 days ago

        I just have to find a linux distro that likes my network device so I can install my local server, but I honestly never left Mumble, the sound quality is higher that Discord (imo)

    • Badabinski@kbin.earth
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      5 days ago

      “Get off vent, or I’ll have you bent.”

      I wish those stupid videos weren’t the first thing my brain goes for when I see the word “Ventrilo.”

  • sculd@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    4 days ago

    So glad I never got into that thing.

    Just doesn’t understand why so many people prefer Discord over forums. In terms of information preservation Discord sucks!

    • Ronno@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      4 days ago

      It’s even become mandatory by communities in some games, which is something I hate with passion. For instance, many MMORPG communities are on Discord these days (e.g. Guild Wars 2, more specifically the raiding scene).

      So I subscribed to these communities and started using Discord. I still don’t get the appeal, it’s a cluttered mess all over the place and it doesn’t feel intuitive to use. Maybe I’m getting old…

    • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      4 days ago

      I think the main thing is that it’s the lowest friction for just sending a message, making a “post” gives people pause, but sending a message people will do no problem, so small communities get more activity in Discord than anywhere else

    • Emmaaa (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      Deutsch
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 days ago

      I hate how discord has replaced this forum culture in many places for this reason, but overall it’s incredibly good for participating in communities in real-time, especially smaller ones. I agree with the forum part, but aside from that it has also replaced IRC, Skype/MSN/ICQ, TeamSpeak, etc. all in one place, while even expanding on their features. It’s unbeaten for friend groups or smaller communities to create a space just for themselves that features text chat, voice chat, screen/video sharing etc.

      Unfortunately though the open source alternatives, even the ones trying to be fully compatible with discord, have not yet reached this featureset and usability level. Also one big issue with communications tools like this is they rely heavily on adoption. Doesn’t help me when I can convince my closest friends to switch to Matrix for example, when there’s so many more people that I interact with on a daily basis through discord who I have no control over. Especially when the alternative just doesn’t cut it for all these normies who don’t understand the implications of big companies controlling such exclusive spaces.

    • endeavor@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 days ago

      Hey, listen I know it’s bad and all but discord makes it really easy to create your own channel, customize it however you want and organize study/gaming with friends.

      Since it’s convenient and easy to setup and use, people use it for things they really shouldn’t.

      To bring back forums we need another equally easy to setup and host forums system that modernizes the bbs.

      • Kichae@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        Modern BBSes aren’t an issue – they’re out there, and they’re pretty good these days – but the lack of VC funding that lets them fund massive user growth isn’t there, so the level of friction re: setting up your own remains high.

        Discord’s advantage is that it’s not just easy to set up, but also free. You’re not going to get that in the forum space anymore. ProBoards isn’t going to invest the money into making them sexy anytime soon.

  • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    [sarcasm] Who could have ever seen it coming? [/sarcasm]

    Honestly, the writing was on the wall for a long time, it had no clear business model and was a mess. It was always going to go this way and I tried pointing out that it was a bad platform but nobody either cared or believed me. Whelp, looks like I was a Cassandra yet again.

    Hope Open Source people can make something to fill the gap, there really is nothing else (yet). Matrix really doesn’t have the features and that which it does have is often bad UX and doesn’t work everywhere. Not seen anything else which will fill the gap and I’ve been looking but I guess nobody thought discord would go down, go this way, or just don’t really know how to make something that would fill the gap, or didn’t want to.