Discord combines a lot of use cases in to one package. You get voice chat, modern chatrooms, video sharing/streaming, direct messages, group messages/calls etc.
But more importantly it operates on a paradigm where a user joining a server means you join all the channels automatically, and access to certain channels can then be revoked or gated instead of granted. This is the exact opposite of what, for example IRC had done (and what Matrix/Element still does to a large extent), and it fosters communities as one group of people can have an n amount text/voice channels dedicated to different conversational topics. This is very useful, even if it's just for a friend group of 5 people. It is no wonder FOSS projects use Discord when it is so useful for it.
Ironically, What Discord does would work incredibly well as a decentralized system. I cannot believe it's taking this long for the FOSS community create an alternative.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
agreed. i've been stuck with discord for years because i don't really keep in touch with a lot of people and the three main people i keep in touch with uses discord exclusively (one is a developer and uses it within those circles, the other is a gamer and uses it within those circles, the third is an aquarist and uses it within those circles). i've argued so many times that we should move to matrix, but they insist that the community structure of discord is superior to anything on the market. @Ninmi@sopuli.xyz has a valid point that it has a good structure for plain communication, but that doesn't mean it's a good community platform for exchange of information; which is your point and i wholly agree. for the purpose of exchange of information, "guilded", a discord clone, is superior as it actually has multiple information exchange features such as an actual forum on top of discords features. unfortunately it is also not FOSS and it is my personal reason for choosing matrix over it, despite matrix not having the features either discord or guilded does. it is frankly infuriating that something like guilded can pop out from nowhere with a small team and do what matrix has failed to deliver for years.