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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] 25 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

But Discord has cultivated a queer membership by serving a different need than those platforms: privacy.

Yeah, gonna stop reading right there. Discord is absolutely selling your data. Nothing against inclusivity features though.

Discord became ubiquitous because it works well, and is free. Take VC money, run at loss, get tons of users, enshittify, die because something better becomes good enough. It’s just another one of those speed runs, which will happen over and over again until the end of humanity.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The difference:

Discord, Facebook/WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. are selling your data... to select customers.
Matrix, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc. are giving your data for free... to everyone.

Like, if there was a stalker wanting to attack you in particular... neither is good, but one is worse than the other.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

How matrix with its end to end encryption giving my data to everyone????

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Matrix encrypts by default when starting a "DM room", otherwise it doesn't force encryption, only allows it.

All the unencrypted rooms out there, are susceptible of getting their contents scraped by either the server, a federated server, an invited user, or even anyone.

Encrypted rooms, can also get scraped unless they're set with security in mind (only send to validated users, make it invite only, don't show past history).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Lemmy is not enriching the data you put on it with data that Lemmy purchases from third parties, in order to create a user-product to sell to advertisers. Meta and Discord are. That's why advertisers buy from them instead of just scraping your posts themselves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Right, you do have to understand that either way, if you put something on the public internet, it is gone.

I don’t want a company to sell my data, making money off of me, then having the audacity to ask me for MORE money on top (nitro). It feels gross.

I don’t mind sharing bits of myself online otherwise.

The owners of federated instances can also just start selling your data too at any point. And as you said, advertisers will also just scrape public data trivially. Basically, the internet and world is a terrible place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Stuff gets deleted from the Internet all the time... other stuff goes viral and lasts for decades. YMMV

It seems to me like your threat model is different from OP's, though. Worrying about ad blockers not being enough, is not the same as fearing for your life because someone might decide to track down where you are IRL.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

which will happen over and over again until the end of ~~humanity~~ capitalism.

I fixed it for you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I think you should keep reading for 10 more words. I elaborated on exactly what you're talking about in the 10 words after that quote.