I've grown with ICQ, MSN Messenger, TeamSpeak, Skype, several local chat apps, then people obsessed with Facebook Messenger, then Snapchat... I just know any particular chatting app is a temporary fad that will eventually end, it's just their cycle. Don't get attached to them.
Same here. I'm just surprised at how well Signal is holding up.
Unfortunately it’s difficult to get people to switch to it
And they didn't make it any easier by removing SMS support from the mobile app.
It was pretty easy to get a couple of my friends to switch by saying it's just another SMS client that also supports highly encrypted messaging with other people that use Signal. Now that it's standalone, nobody will even fucking touch it.
If only they had functional data backup and export on non-Android platforms…
door opening sound knock knock
I can still sometimes "hear" ICQ, and that's going on almost 30 years ago now?
I still have the "uh oh" sound - use it on my phone for notifications.
I can still recite my ICQ number off the top of my head
63094052 add me A/S/L?
And then you wonder WTF you want my age, sex, and location.
Oh yeah, I've been through the same. Discord was nice while it lasted.
TS and Matrix will hopefully be the replacements I use if I can get people to switch. A lot of discord communities are heavily entrenched though, which I'm sure they're banking on to maintain momentum as the service quality continues to degrade.
A lot of discord communities are heavily entrenched though,
Entrenchment enables Enshittification, unfortunately.
As a casual user I find the entrenched communities more of a bug than a feature. Reminds me of reddit cliques. But, I do get your point, and I agree that the inertia will be a challenge when it comes to getting groups to migrate.
The paid promotions are from videogame makers and will offer users gifts for completing in-game tasks while their friends watch on Discord.
So they're still showing ads to paying users. This shit should be illegal.
Why should that be illegal?? It's definitely disgusting, but if the paid customers don't want to see ads (they don't), then they will leave. I don't see how or why to make it illegal to show ads to paid users.
edit: I didn't really say that right, I just think that this is a complex problem, and saying "oh just make it illegal" is not a realistic solution. Some antitrust regulation is good for innovation, some more might be worse for innovation, and we need to be realistic about that, and not just act like we can regulate it all and then there will be 5 competing discords or whatever.
because at a certain critical threshold, which I think discord has reached, expecting users to simply stop using a platform when it is the only platform remaining for such tasks is shortsighted and ignores the true monopoly that's been created.
See: Facebook and it's complete consumption of most social media, VR headsets, and for-sale pages largely replacing Craigslist. If I want to buy or sell cars it's basically impossible to do without Facebook Marketplace. I hate giving data to them.
This may actually push users into thinking about modding discord, or even better, switching to matrix
Good move discord, I like it
I never stopped using irc (I know I'm old). There is matrix to irc connectors that are awesome. One of the benefits of open source is a lot of the protocols work well together.
Can you recommend any IRC channels for techies please? I like infosec, Linux, and Mac topics but I can't find any communities that aren't turbo-clicky or dead. Most channels I've found are like ham radio: a bunch of old grumpy people ragchewing. I'd like an actual conversation I can contribute to.
Not Rizon - Linux. I asked them a noob question and they banned me. Kind of irked me because I was just asking for help or opinion. I don't even remember what I asked.
ah, that vintage linux community experience.
They're going full Microsoft Skype mode
And I thought Discord was initially launched to destroy Skype.
It was only ever launched to take over their position, not destroy their program design. Greed eventually consumes all.
Discord keeps getting used for things it shouldn't be used for like tech support. I will be glad when it dies. Don't hide your support behind a platform that can't be searched from the web. It's not a replacement for forums and issue trackers.
I couldn't agree more. I hate that some open source projects are using discord for communicating.
I especially hate that it's being used as a login for some things. Goddammit, let me just use my fucking email address.
If a service ever says discord only when I try to login, that service no longer exists. Find an alternative or make do without it.
Remember the emails from 2015? The plan was to have a platform, that just works. No bullshit, no issues, just functional features.
Even when Nitro was originally added, it was 5 bucks to optional support, if you'd like to help the company. Now the same sub is 10 a month, and half of the client is unusable without it.
Not to mention all the paid account banners and borders they're selling for an egregious amount of money
Genuine question, but what's unusable without Nitro? I don't use Discord very often, and the only thing that I've seen Nitro pushed for is reactions from other communities, and that's pointless anyway.
video calls and screensharing is very, very rough (locked to 480/low frame rates) without nitro, for one. the file sharing limits are also extremely restrictive.
Everyone is optimistically altruistic until the corporate greed comes a-knockin'
I don't get why micro transaction are never micro transactions. If a cosmetic item/feature in a game or sth. like discord would be 50ct up to a Euro, I would here and there buy sth. But they always want 5-15€ and that isn't money I'm willing to spend. Take Signal for example 5 € for a badge for 30 days is just stupid. I recently donated 20 euros still 30 days. The thing is I don't care for the badge but I think it could be beneficial to promote the ability to donate via the badge but the system they use, is really stupid.
I think the reason they’re not micro has to do with whales. I bet the whales outbuy normies at a rate that means companies make more selling 1/10th the volume, for 20x the price. The whales go hard. Did you hear that some games will task an artist with creating game-skins for a single person, because they know they can get that person to buy even at a really high price
it's also about sustainable income. 50c one time purchases are garbage for the bottom line, subscriptions look amazing to investors because it's effectively guaranteed income that you can assume a current subscriber will remain subscribed until the service shuts down.
I’m shocked they’re moving to ads when I’ve been paying them $4/month for Discord Nitro for several years now. Surely, that revenue is enough for their upkeep???
It's never enough. Growth must be un-ending. Also gotta pump them numbers up for an IPO so they can bail with a pocket full of cash.
Gotta follow that Reddit formula… 🤦♀️
I assume that's sarcasm, but no, they almost certainly aren't anywhere near probably from nitro subscriptions. I don't know how many employees they have, but they surely have a lot of developers working on all their features. And that cloud server time isn't cheap either, especially when you're handling video.
They could have stopped adding features years ago.
There's some weird corporate obsession with always constantly "innovating" and "improving". Adding complexity for the sake of complexity. Completely blind and oblivious to the fact that most consumers actually want something consistent that just does what they ask it to without much fuss, not just additional complexity.
Discord has added probably a hundred features since I started using it- ultimately, the only things I ever touch in the app are the same set of 5 that existed back in 2015 when I switched. Text, voice, basic file and image sharing, group servers, and (after they added it) video+screen sharing. Literally everything else is total fluff.
Streaming, especially video, is quite challenging and expensive. The fact that discord's video streaming was so cheap was always somewhat suspicious.
At least it is not "Enshittification Continues: Lemmy to begin showing advertisements on it's fediverse platform"
I'm afraid that every generation runs into this and learns the hard way. Discord isn't the first and won't be the last. The moment someone wants to become profitable, all bets are off.
.. and open source projects continue to list discord as a community option to discuss items about their project.
Sincerely hope this will be the beginning of a D-Exodus, and that all those open source projects who made the choice to only use Discord for community communication will move to something which is search engine friendly for searching for answers.
This!
Discord was great and I'm pretty sure that some projects will take its place (like Revolt maybe that others are mentioning) but PLEASE FOSS PROJECT JUST USE AN INDEXABLE FORUM like Discourse, so that people don't have to signup and enter a server for each project they use!
https://revolt.chat/ Cope, but would be good for this to become a thing.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
