Convenient, easy to use, large user base, one point registration for multiple communities, tends to simply just work.
But is it the best? Nah. And their increased monetisation drives are annoying.
Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers
violintech@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I loving all the discord hate here. I’ve never understood why people like it.
tissek@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
dan@upvote.au 7 months ago
one point registration for multiple communities,
Federation, or at least some form of single sign-on with arbitrary providers (like we used to do with OpenID), is a better way of solving this.
sonori@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Everything here is basically text and maybe images if your lucky. In order to make it into a Discord or Zoom competitor you would need to solve far higher bandwidth things like HD video and low latency audio, and both of thouse are fundamentally very different things for a server to handle as compared to high latency short text messages.
You could probably link account sign in, but any real-time stuff would likely be limited to within that single instance unless you create a whole alternative method of federation that would still only be available between thouse certain supported instances.
It’s also a whole lot more expensive to host, unless you go peer to peer in which case good luck, and vulnerable to bad actors massively running up hosting bills even if you can protect against denial of service attacks.
It would be nice to see, but there is a reason why Matrix is the closest anyone’s come and it’s still more a proof of concept then an actual platform you could direct family or random strangers to.
dan@upvote.au 7 months ago
In order to make it into a Discord or Zoom competitor you would need to solve far higher bandwidth things like HD video and low latency audio, and both of thouse are fundamentally very different things for a server to handle as compared to high latency short text messages.
Integrate into something that already exists, like Jitsi? Instead of trying to build one single app that handles everything, maybe it would be nice to have a suite of apps that all work together and can all use the same login.
veniasilente@lemm.ee 7 months ago
In order to make it into a Discord or Zoom competitor you would need to solve far higher bandwidth things like HD video and low latency audio, and both of thouse are fundamentally very different things for a server to handle as compared to high latency short text messages.
That falls into the same two fallacies as the ones of complainers against Youtube alternatives:
- that in order to offer an alternative to a service you have to replicate all of it
- that you have to provide an alternative to only one service
Like, really, you don’t need to replace all of Discord, only the parts that matter. The alternative to build not to Discord but to “Discord is being used for documentation” already exists, it’s called web forums. Ditto, the alternative to “Discord is being used for communities” also exists, it’s called XMPP or IRC or Matrix depending on who you ask. The alternative to “Discord tracks user data” is simply called “you don’t do it”, etc.
Like, we are literally on Lemmy. Just about the first thing that we Get It from the internet is that centralization is bad, be it Products or Services.
tissek@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
I would bet all the pieces to make a better communication suite than discord are there. They just need to be put together into a package and marketed well.
Zworf@beehaw.org 7 months ago
In other words: Matrix.
dan@upvote.au 7 months ago
I’ve never tried Matrix but I’ve heard good things about it.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 7 months ago
It’s good enough and everyone has it and knows it
I’m not about to even attempt to ask someone in a game if they’ve got matrix because the answer is going to be no
thingsiplay@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I think it’s like Windows and Reddit. People don’t use it because they like or love it, but because most are there. Sometimes the only way to interact with the developers or find new people in an active community.
Zworf@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Yeah me either. It spies on your computer, they ban third-party clients. It’s owned by bytedance. When I use the web version it kicks me out every day and I have to log in again.
I don’t mind it being around but I really hate the way open source projects (e.g. Home Assistant) use it as their only platform for collaboration.
Rinox@feddit.it 7 months ago
I mean, it’s great for audio and video chats. What I never understood is why people started using discord as a forum, as documentation or as some kind of program (like, why is Midjourney on a public discord chat? It’s probably the worst possible interface).
Discord is excellent for chatting with your friends while playing games, and that’s it.