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Discord’s secret weapon against open source competitors (it’s PluralKit) (medium.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Why are FOSS platforms like Matrix having such a hard time getting users to migrate from Discord? Because of PluralKit.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing preventing a PluralKit equivalent from being made for other platforms. In fact, a quick search turned up a WIP Matrix port on github.

So no, I don't think this is true. Lack of PluralKit isn't what's preventing people from switching en masse. It's the opposite—lack of people switching means there's a lack of demand for a PluralKit port in the first place, so even though there is a port people don't know it exists and thus it doesn't get as much dev attention.

It comes down to network effects, ultimately, and just plain inertia. If you're already on Discord, and all your friends are on Discord, it's hard to convince you to switch. And being more familiar with the Discord bot ecosystem (like PluralKit) is just one more thing that adds to the inertia.