Discord blocks 3rd-party apps. Discord is not libre software.
Tbh I don't mind proprietary apps, so long as the user experience is good.
I don't mind the ui nudges to buy nitro - the server costs have to come from somewhere - but if discord starts seriously serving ads, I'm gone.
jokes on you i got overwhelmed by every channel being split into a gajillion chats anyway
I've been excitedly following the matrix project for years, but I'm in a lot of unique discord servers that would never move short of catastrophe. The network effect is too strong to shake the apathetic. We'll win the long game with matrix, but it might take a while.
I only ever joined Discord for friends. Leaving would mean losing all friends, not even a select bunch. They're not moving and while some may care that it's upsetting, it's a collective bunch that needs convincing. Friends of friends of friends. People aren't jumping ship for one person to also not have their other friends not jump ship.
Reddit is a community but doesn't have the more casual chat that friends use (well they have it now, but it was never good).
Discord pretty much has to burn bridges like Reddit did before anyone moves.
There's not really any good alternative for large communities. The amount of tools available on Discord in the form of bots is so useful, any other platform they move to needs to have that as well.
Discord didn't have this at launch but it grew.
Yeah but now that it has it people aren't going to leave. We need the alternatives to be good before they leave, they can't migrate now and have it be good later.
Nah. Discord is the most accessible, if we’re talking about blind folks and accessibility.
I tried using Element, and yikes!!! No. Cant read a single convo. In Discord, I can go back as far as necessary till I catch up.
Tried other apps, too, and they all do the same thing.
How is the vision-impared accessibility with Lemmy? Obviously good enough that you're using it but I'm curious how the experience is.
Not sure if my comment went through, but the site is ok for replying to comments. The app, Mlem, is good for browsing communities except when it randomly crashes.
Thanks for replying, both comments came through! I'm not shocked that mlem is having some issues, since it's in like the Apple version of early access. Thankfully, it seems like the community here so far are the kind of people who care more about accessibility than Reddit ever did.
Oh absolutely! I have contacted Reddit a few times and all they would say is that they think Reddit should be used by everyone, and they’re working on accessibility. Yet, when I update the app, it somehow gets worse! Clearly, they don’t care, or they’d have made the exzemption to third-party apps that focus on accessibility sooner, rather than when blind folks were banging on their door, wanting better.
The Mlem app keeps crashing all of a sudden, so I hate that. And making a community is kinda strange. I get to the “create” button and when I press it, it says, “match the…” but I don’t know what the rest is cuz the screen reader stops.
It sure would be nice if development communities would stop locking their content behind Discord.
So annoying when you run into an interesting project and you realise that the only documentation is a link to Discord.
Time is a flat circle. We’re going back to IRC, boys.
I knew you'd all be back!
Honestly I'm leaning on discord as a crutch to avoid going back to reddit. I suspect discord will ruin themselves one day as well, but I plan to continue using it for the future until options like Lemmy are more developed.
Discord doesn't really block 3rd party apps. Technically, they are against ToS, but unless you're doing something bad, it's seen as okay by the discord staff.
But yes, it's quite the closed ecosystem obviously. There are no 3rd party clients that implement all features, mostly due to the fact that it's all closed source.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
What like .... Oh idk dropping the discriminator and forcing a new system that will encourage account selling/scamming?
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
I'd love to leave discord, but I know to many people that use it and will not budge on leaving. I am stuck with it.
So unless discord makes a very serious boneheaded mistake and double down on it like Reddit did... I don't see many people leaving.
Element is a great client for matrix. It functions similarly to Discord.
While I love the sentiment, I have to say leaving Discord was one of the worst choices I ever made, not because Discord is inherently better, but because of the friends on it. I was in a very different state mentally and left without warning, and I regret it everyday, even though I'm back on Discord and some of my friends were willing to accept me, I still get a very intense feeling that what I did was unforgivable and I shouldn't be given this chance to talk with them again. It feels like leaving someone waiting for a high five and returning it months later when the hype is gone... I'm mostly inactive because I feel so wrong and I really don't deserve friends that are so nice. While I made the choice to leave and I knew the consequences, I don't wish anyone else to make that same mistake, leave with confidence, not with a cloudy mindset, worsening depression, and way less friends.
The part about it being unforgivable sounds extreme. How can there be "consequences" for simply temporarily opting out of a chat app?
Losing touch with friends for a while definitely sucks but if you need a break from literally an app then real friends will accept that.
I left way more than once, so leaving several times and expecting people to accept you again and again sounds like a chore and not everyone is going to keep accepting you.
I don't think other people see it that way. It's very common for people on discord to disappear for days/months then pop back in.
Yeah I suppose thats true, I was very much in a different mental state when I left, so much so I deleted my account, one person I was good friends with checked in with my phone number and made sure I was okay. I only wanted to share my experience because some others viewing might be in a similar state I was in, terrified of technology and *almost left it all behind. I have very good people though and I couldnt be more thankful. :)
I don't think anyone blames you for leaving. Social networks are notoriously bad for mental health. And I think everyone takes a break from time to time. You don't deserve to feel so bad. 💜
Thank you :) From one internet surfer to another, your comment was acknowledged and very appreciated. I wish social media wasn't as prevalent as it currently is, but still nonetheless I appreciate the kind words and the time you took to write! <3
Do we also have alternatives to Discord?
I really wish there was a selfhosted E2EE chat, video, stream app with client for windows, linux and android. Already tried element but it's a pain to make it work just fine, even when i tried to federate it, it took so much time to get into other communities. Maybe I'm used to simplicity and 'optimization' that discord has but i would like a selfhosted clone tbh. I really dislike the way the discord is taking already. Same as for reddit it's hard to convince ppl to move over and then again scatter everyone to other apps/places. Geez, fck this, please.
Can be hard to migrate to Revolt or Matrix communication apps depend completely on the user. I see it the same as how not so many people migrated to Signal after realizing WhatsApp and Telegram are not really private.
It is so far a slightly different situation. First it gets revenue directly by the users instead of advertisers. This changes everything at a fundamental level.
Second, the type of community is much different. The communities using the full feature set are generally limited in scale one way or another. The issues with Facebook, Twitter and reddit arose also because there is a gigantic userbase which interacts with each other. Toxic policies are more likely to be forcefully accepted due to the massive social inertia.
Type of content hits differently. As a lot of communication is real time, or moment to moment, there is less lost value if things go haywire. Now this absolutely does not apply for servers which directly act as a forum replacement run by the companies themselves. Some use it as a website replacement for some reason which is also a terrible idea.
I think a future migration will be a lot more fluent and less hurtful overall. The moves away from TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, Skype were never impactful. With the monetization model I also view it as less probable.
Tbh I don't mind proprietary apps, so long as the user experience is good.
I don't mind the ui nudges to buy nitro - the server costs have to come from somewhere - but if discord starts seriously serving ads, I'm gone.
jokes on you i got overwhelmed by every channel being split into a gajillion chats anyway
I've been excitedly following the matrix project for years, but I'm in a lot of unique discord servers that would never move short of catastrophe. The network effect is too strong to shake the apathetic. We'll win the long game with matrix, but it might take a while.
I only ever joined Discord for friends. Leaving would mean losing all friends, not even a select bunch. They're not moving and while some may care that it's upsetting, it's a collective bunch that needs convincing. Friends of friends of friends. People aren't jumping ship for one person to also not have their other friends not jump ship.
Reddit is a community but doesn't have the more casual chat that friends use (well they have it now, but it was never good).
Discord pretty much has to burn bridges like Reddit did before anyone moves.
There's not really any good alternative for large communities. The amount of tools available on Discord in the form of bots is so useful, any other platform they move to needs to have that as well.
Discord didn't have this at launch but it grew.
Yeah but now that it has it people aren't going to leave. We need the alternatives to be good before they leave, they can't migrate now and have it be good later.
Nah. Discord is the most accessible, if we’re talking about blind folks and accessibility. I tried using Element, and yikes!!! No. Cant read a single convo. In Discord, I can go back as far as necessary till I catch up. Tried other apps, too, and they all do the same thing.
How is the vision-impared accessibility with Lemmy? Obviously good enough that you're using it but I'm curious how the experience is.
Not sure if my comment went through, but the site is ok for replying to comments. The app, Mlem, is good for browsing communities except when it randomly crashes.
Thanks for replying, both comments came through! I'm not shocked that mlem is having some issues, since it's in like the Apple version of early access. Thankfully, it seems like the community here so far are the kind of people who care more about accessibility than Reddit ever did.
Oh absolutely! I have contacted Reddit a few times and all they would say is that they think Reddit should be used by everyone, and they’re working on accessibility. Yet, when I update the app, it somehow gets worse! Clearly, they don’t care, or they’d have made the exzemption to third-party apps that focus on accessibility sooner, rather than when blind folks were banging on their door, wanting better.
The Mlem app keeps crashing all of a sudden, so I hate that. And making a community is kinda strange. I get to the “create” button and when I press it, it says, “match the…” but I don’t know what the rest is cuz the screen reader stops.
It sure would be nice if development communities would stop locking their content behind Discord.
So annoying when you run into an interesting project and you realise that the only documentation is a link to Discord.
Time is a flat circle. We’re going back to IRC, boys.
I knew you'd all be back!
Honestly I'm leaning on discord as a crutch to avoid going back to reddit. I suspect discord will ruin themselves one day as well, but I plan to continue using it for the future until options like Lemmy are more developed.
Discord doesn't really block 3rd party apps. Technically, they are against ToS, but unless you're doing something bad, it's seen as okay by the discord staff.
But yes, it's quite the closed ecosystem obviously. There are no 3rd party clients that implement all features, mostly due to the fact that it's all closed source.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
What like .... Oh idk dropping the discriminator and forcing a new system that will encourage account selling/scamming?
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
I'd love to leave discord, but I know to many people that use it and will not budge on leaving. I am stuck with it.
So unless discord makes a very serious boneheaded mistake and double down on it like Reddit did... I don't see many people leaving.
Element is a great client for matrix. It functions similarly to Discord.
While I love the sentiment, I have to say leaving Discord was one of the worst choices I ever made, not because Discord is inherently better, but because of the friends on it. I was in a very different state mentally and left without warning, and I regret it everyday, even though I'm back on Discord and some of my friends were willing to accept me, I still get a very intense feeling that what I did was unforgivable and I shouldn't be given this chance to talk with them again. It feels like leaving someone waiting for a high five and returning it months later when the hype is gone... I'm mostly inactive because I feel so wrong and I really don't deserve friends that are so nice. While I made the choice to leave and I knew the consequences, I don't wish anyone else to make that same mistake, leave with confidence, not with a cloudy mindset, worsening depression, and way less friends.
The part about it being unforgivable sounds extreme. How can there be "consequences" for simply temporarily opting out of a chat app?
Losing touch with friends for a while definitely sucks but if you need a break from literally an app then real friends will accept that.
I left way more than once, so leaving several times and expecting people to accept you again and again sounds like a chore and not everyone is going to keep accepting you.
I don't think other people see it that way. It's very common for people on discord to disappear for days/months then pop back in.
Yeah I suppose thats true, I was very much in a different mental state when I left, so much so I deleted my account, one person I was good friends with checked in with my phone number and made sure I was okay. I only wanted to share my experience because some others viewing might be in a similar state I was in, terrified of technology and *almost left it all behind. I have very good people though and I couldnt be more thankful. :)
I don't think anyone blames you for leaving. Social networks are notoriously bad for mental health. And I think everyone takes a break from time to time. You don't deserve to feel so bad. 💜
Thank you :) From one internet surfer to another, your comment was acknowledged and very appreciated. I wish social media wasn't as prevalent as it currently is, but still nonetheless I appreciate the kind words and the time you took to write! <3
Do we also have alternatives to Discord?
I really wish there was a selfhosted E2EE chat, video, stream app with client for windows, linux and android. Already tried element but it's a pain to make it work just fine, even when i tried to federate it, it took so much time to get into other communities. Maybe I'm used to simplicity and 'optimization' that discord has but i would like a selfhosted clone tbh. I really dislike the way the discord is taking already. Same as for reddit it's hard to convince ppl to move over and then again scatter everyone to other apps/places. Geez, fck this, please.
Can be hard to migrate to Revolt or Matrix communication apps depend completely on the user. I see it the same as how not so many people migrated to Signal after realizing WhatsApp and Telegram are not really private.
It is so far a slightly different situation. First it gets revenue directly by the users instead of advertisers. This changes everything at a fundamental level.
Second, the type of community is much different. The communities using the full feature set are generally limited in scale one way or another. The issues with Facebook, Twitter and reddit arose also because there is a gigantic userbase which interacts with each other. Toxic policies are more likely to be forcefully accepted due to the massive social inertia.
Type of content hits differently. As a lot of communication is real time, or moment to moment, there is less lost value if things go haywire. Now this absolutely does not apply for servers which directly act as a forum replacement run by the companies themselves. Some use it as a website replacement for some reason which is also a terrible idea.
I think a future migration will be a lot more fluent and less hurtful overall. The moves away from TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, Skype were never impactful. With the monetization model I also view it as less probable.