what practical alternatives are out there? every gaming and streaming community seems to use discord, but i hate it on the basis of it being an enshittified, proprietary walled garden.
https://stoat.chat/ is fully just discord but FOSS
Edit:their GitHub page
Is this the 3rd name change? or the 2nd?
None. Closest is Matrix, and it sucks for that purpose because it’s more like Slack.
This news comes immediately after they floated the idea of embedding AI, you say?
Pretty much immediately after yeah
Well this gives me time to start my own Mumble server now
How that MIGHT change things?
Just look at every other tech company in the space that’s gone public to see how it WILL change things. It’s not a mystery at this point.
The real question is how do you enshittify a product that is already shit?
Since when is Discord shit? Oh no, an easy to use application with incredible sound quality! Ahhhh
Anything annoying I can think of is stuff that makes a lot of sense considering said application is, for most people, 100% free.
discord is one of those things i struggle to find an alternative to. not because i lack the skill to do it myself or to make something else do the same tasks, but because all my friends who aren’t as techy as me or big servers i like talking to wouldnt migrate.
having seen its decline since 2016, sooner or later ill have to make the jump but its gonna be harder than ditching google or microsoft because of the community aspect of it.
A great problem of our society is there being too many problems to have any group of people focus on enough to get any of them solved.
If every issue has just 2% of people caring about it, companies can easily just write those 2% off and do business as usual.
This is why to not have an enshitifed world it has to be top down, and people have to participate in politics logically as opposed to based on which groups of people they hate.
The basic maths of it just doesn’t work for any sort of bottom up action.
It would have to be a relative time of quiet and one company sticking out like a sore thumb for long enough for them to be damaged.
You have seen how rapidly things are getting worse.
There is not going to be that happening, and even if there were, it wouldn’t be enough as there are thousands more issues.
And so many things using it instead of a forum for information or questions
It’s especially bizzare when git repos for “open source corporate alternative” type software uses it over their own repo’s issue trackers and forums.
WTF
They want the social media engagement, I guess. But still. It’s ridiculous how much of a blind spot folks have for it.
It also makes giving or getting any kind of support a hellish time sink, but that’s almost besides the point…
It is an insane choice for a support tool.
It also makes giving or getting any kind of support a hellish time sink, but that’s almost besides the point…
You know, this comment just made me realize this might actually be the point for some companies.
Its a cheap way to pretend that you care about customer service, while actually dissuading customers strongly from actually trying. Its also completely easy to bot vs having a human on a phone line.
Let the final enshitification commence
╰( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )つ──☆*:・ﾟ
Is discord not enshitty?
I open it and it updates 6 times, then I get a full page ad for nitro. Then all the settings push nitro. And all the “servers” push nitro.
It’s the best at what it does, but had been getting shitty in the way you described. However, it’s free and they have to support it somehow. I’ll put up with the nitro pushing and understand that’s my cost of doing business. If they go public, I’ll probably actively start looking for an alternative, because that always kills a product and it will for sure mean “AI” will be forced into it.
discord recently did a survey about how users would react to adding AI
in the options, you could say that you would be ok with ai if it was easily disabled and if it was marked
i hope they follow the survey answers
However, it’s free and they have to support it somehow.
These arguments might just give me an aneurysm.
This has let so many horrible free to play games off the hook while they literally make billions in profits and have astounding profit margins.
Discord makes money.
In a non hyper greed infested world, they could simply coast at the level of wealth they are at now, still making free money for their investors, paying their workers, and improving the service, without making peoples lives shittier.
There is no reason to justify this shit.
I agree, this is just an inexcusable reasoning that is essentially flawed. In all essence, the ads, the intrusive popups, the 1000 cookies which you have to accept and giving money to those poor billionaires is implied to be as the right thing to do - which is not.
Justifications like this is why we still have shit software lying about the web and nothing is done about it. The companies dont care about the people, and they don’t care about op. Being a suckup for a corpo will get you nowhere - in fact saying that they’re the best, is just a false narrative.
In the end that statement is essentially an oxymoron. Op is trying to justify the oppressive strategies of corpoware, while not realising that they already have info about op’s stepmother’s maiden name.
It’s the best at what it does…
Locking data away from search engines so that unless you’re in that little fiefdom you don’t get the information.
And preventing any internet archiving so any and all information on it is lost whenever the server is deleted. It never should have been used for anything but game chat.
Probably that too, but specifically the ability to spin up a private space to communicate with people for things like video games. Anyone that’s using it as their means of customer service is an idiot.
Apparently I struck a chord with my post, so I’m curious what is better than discord, and free that made my statement controversial?
Also, I don’t see locking data from search engines as a bad thing. The fediverse isn’t search engine searchable either and Google, bing, etc, don’t natively have the right to index private data.
Matrix?
Also, I don’t see locking data from search engines as a bad thing. The fediverse isn’t search engine searchable either
The fediverse not being searchable is one of the biggest flaws with it, and make it similarly ephemeral to Discord, except its actually worse because the sizes of communities are just in that goldilocks area of awfulness where there are echo chambers, and people are rude and toxic. Whatsmore, availability due to the small size is relatively mediocre.
IRC for chat and mumble for voice.
both of those are not remotely as feature rich or user-friendly as discord.
Maybe people are spoiled? How the shit did we run communities and shit in the past? Bring back forums
It is. Which is why I‘m baffled they didn’t go public already.
It will inevitably focus more on pleasing its public investors than anything else, therefore enshittification.
Maybe Steam/Valve is a unicorn, but it’s not publicly traded and it’s doing just fine.
It is a unicorn. I dread the day Gaben dies and Valve ends up going public. It feels like the last bastion of decent online services.
Valve’s margins are almost criminal as-is. They make cash hand over fist, and they’re basically a monopoly already.
…So not much might actually change, at least at first?
But this why they don’t need to go public. They have plenty of cash. And it’d just shrink the slice of profit Valve’s owners get.
Still, even private, I’m afraid of what Steam might look like if big competitors like EGS and Microsoft footgun themselves out of the market, and GoG fades away due to their DRM-free policy.
I’m guessing this will lead to more things being locked behind their subscription model. Ransoming core features for cash is the standard template of this process.
Don’t use Discord!
IRC and Matrix are better, free alternatives.
can’t embed content on irc. that alone makes it not viable as alternative, because communities rely on this feature to share content and memes.
Matrix sadly doesn’t have the bots, apj, or infrastructure that Discord has. Not to mention its a horrible alternative to Discord, not having permissionable channels is a deal breaker…
Trust me, I want to abandon this ship more than anything but my games/orgs/clans rely heavily on a lot of discord automation that just isn’t even possible in Matrix.
Discord got popular because it did Skype and Mumble better than both, but it has suffered a lot from Enshitification
How has it suffered at all in enshitification?
Added undismissible gamification features nobody asked for, hiding more and more features behind boosts, and constant breaking of their mobile app.
Ignorant question, which features have been hidden behind pay wall that was available before hand?
Video streaming bitrates is the one that most affects my day to day. You could stream 1080p for free back in the day. I also believe the ability to post server emotes in other servers is also something that was locked behind the introduction of Nitro, but I can’t confirm since at that time I was only in a single channel.
With this said, Discord needs to make money somehow, but crippling your own platform isn’t the way.
Ah yes, I definitely want banner ads, “Quests” and a Microtransactions Store for NAME COLOURS
That’s not Enshitification at all…
/sarcasm
But realistically for a free tool with the functionality it has. The skippable microtranactions arent a big deal. The core functionality hasnt been effected at all.
I would argue that any amount of resources being spent on adding features nobody wants and nobody uses is Enshitification, as they’re not being used on fixing the myriad existing problems or adding features people actually want
They tried being a game store at one point, where you bought Steam games through them.
I use both matrix and discord regularly and matrix is nowhere near a viable alternative for discord, the way they work is just too different. The only real alternative I’ve been able to find is guilded but it’s no better than discord since it’s still completely centralized and closed source
Came here to say this. Matrix is also a bit clunky still.
I’m on Matrix. That felt like an epic accomplishment that required both mobile and desktop. I don’t remember why it was so difficult, but the registration/login/association process was awful. Maybe that’s just Matrix.org.
Looking for things to do with my Pi that I’m upgrading today with an SSD. Maybe I’ll run my own Matrix server on it so that there can be something else technically running with no traffic.
I don’t want to use it but the thing is I need to convince my friends and the 50 servers I’m in to switch too…
Also: Stoat (formerly Revolt)
I wonder who sued them… maybe Revolut?
Well the developers, like all techbros, have been sweetening up Discord to what it is. Once they find a pretty buyer, they’ll sell it for top dollar. That’s the real completion cycle of enshittification. Some private firm will have it or someone like Microsoft may have it and do to it like they’ve done with Skype.
They did, at least, be smart enough to already say no to a buyout attempt by Microsoft a few years ago
I genuinely do not know how that would change anything. It‘s already monetized thoroughly. They will just add even more ad campaign quests and stuff which you can ignore.
Have you not seen the world? Everything, no matter how horrific, can always get infinitely worse.
The PIF could buy it and ban gay people. Israel could buy it and persecute people against genocide. A rich right wing billionaire could buy it and force even more nazi memes upon the youth. They could make a monetized limit to how many servers one can join that is purposefully below any sane reasonable or normal level. They could make PMs pay per message.
There are infinite ways it can get worse. Infinite.
Until they lock it up where you can’t. Or they’ll decide on selling data and injecting ads into your convos or streams.
In other words this hasn’t been enshittified to the max yet at all. There are new and horrible depths to explore.
Oh, sweet summer child.
You just wait.
Wonder what’ll be next after Discord enshittifies and alienates all the current users.
There’s like 4 contenders, but all missing the crucial thing, critical mass of users
It’s been enshittifying for a while now.
Who the hell would pay $12 for some fancy profile template? Who’d pay $6 just for an animated thing that revolves around your profile picture? Half of that garbage obstructs your profile.
Not even subscribing to their $10 Nitro deal is worth it. Wow, you get to have a poor selection of ways to display your name. Maybe if a server you really love to be in was active and could take advantage of some of the things advertised, probably might be worth it. But a lot of the time, I’m in servers that don’t so I don’t see a point.
You’re right, guess I should’ve said “enshittify further”.
The only reason for a sub is to use emotes everywhere and thats it. Thank god there is Vencord
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