Discord is opening the monetization floodgates: get ready for microtransaction stores and paid 'exclusive memes'

dirtmayor@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 293 points –
Discord is opening the monetization floodgates: get ready for microtransaction stores and paid 'exclusive memes'
pcgamer.com
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What did people use before discord?

For voice, TeamSpeak

For text chat, IRC

For forums, phpBB or any other forum software

Discord replacing the third is the saddest. It completely isn't fit for purpose. Part of the reason you can't find anything on Google now is that forums died, and Discord is unsearchable.

Discord just switches it's business model yearly to clone the one thing it hasn't killed yet. Started out to kill TS and IRC, then went on to kill the forum, then it tried to kill Steam/GOG but failed, now it's trying to kill Patreon.

Discord is pretty great for video/voice chat - the things it tries to do outside of that can be frustrating.

It's miles ahead of having to use Ventrillo, Teamspeak, Skype like we had to in the past.

Discord voice quality is significantly worse than TS3, and it has way less features actually related to voice chatting.

As for Vent and especially Skype, it's an improvement.

I never used Discord but used google hangouts before switching to Telegram and Matrix (the former for family and the latter for everything else).

Also, weirdly, a lot of people seem to use Discord for things used to be (and I would say should) be on a forum (or community, magazine, etc.)

Trying to follow the thread of a discussion about some obscure point you're interested in is much easier when it's in a thread, instead of an undifferentiated chat log with a bunch of unrelated cross-talk.

I plan to check out matrix since the /r/firefox group has been chatting through that.

Does matrix have a voice/video functionality or is it strictly text chat?

Teamspeak, Skype. Funny enough up until redesigning a year to two years ago they advertised themselves as being the replacement to these.