Good. Discord is the cancer of the free searchable internet.
If you really need communication, use XMPP or Matrix.
And for everything else use stuff like forums and Lemmy and mastodon reddit Twitter whatever. But not closed walled gardens that are not searchable on the net. It's astonishing that so many people gatekeep content behind this Discord crap.
XMPP is mostly dead these days. The protocol is very inefficient (it's all XML) which isn't ideal on mobile devices since it uses more bandwidth to transfer and more processing power to parse.
I work at a big tech company, and at work we use Mattermost hosted outside our data center for cases where our internal stuff doesn't work. It seems fine and I think it's open-source, but I don't know a lot about it.
I've heard about Matrix but haven't tried it yet! Is it good?
Xmpp is far from death. Just because many started to use matrix instead doesn't mean it's dead. Even though matrix is a Ressource and performance nightmare much more so than xmpp will ever be.
I'm an IT specialist and work in IT too. I also selfhosted a lot of stuff publicly.
XMPP is used by many companies like Facebook , Google, Nintendo, GitHub, zoom, WhatsApp, Apple etc.
Xmpp is a an official Standard.unlikr things like matrix.
And if you think that xmpp has battery issues.oeadays then that tells me you used any xmpp app like conversation/snikket etc. like many years ago.
My xmpp Apps use way less battery than any matrix app ever could.
XMPP is fast, reliable and just works. Matrix is a nightmare to selfhost, too.
IRC? Irc has no E2EE whatsoever. Therfore isn't even comparable to xmpp with omemo or matrix.
XMPP is used by many companies like Facebook , Google, Nintendo, GitHub, zoom, WhatsApp, Apple etc.
Facebook doesn't use XMPP; they use a custom protocol built on top of MQTT. WhatsApp was using a binary equivalent to XMPP (keeping the same stanzas but removing the XML), but I'm not sure if they still are. Do you have a source stating that the other companies use XMPP?
Xmpp is far from death. Just because many started to use matrix instead doesn’t mean it’s dead. Even though matrix is a Ressource and performance nightmare much more so than xmpp will ever be.
How is matrix a performance nightmare? been running a matrix server for years with almost no issues. I guess the only exception was the few times I ran out of hdd space, but that’s it.
Xmpp is a an official Standard.unlikr things like matrix.
What’s an official standard? Matrix is a protocol just like xmpp and the specs are public, just like with xmpp.
Matrix is a nightmare to selfhost, too.
It’s literally as easy as running a docker container and editing a yaml file, at least for synapse.
Are XMPP or Matrix really any more seachable? I’m all in on FOSS, clearly, but do they fix that complaint? I feel like the real solution is separating chat and longer term info, and putting the longer term info on a wiki or other public and indexable format.
Totally, I too think that one should prefer Element for multiple reasons (feature richness, app availability, ... I mean, the web widgets absolutely rule imo), after all, it's UI is similar to Discord/Slack but it also feels somewhat different here and there. For the first 1-2 hours it can be a bit overwhelming for newbies. Cinny's UI is much closer to Discord's UI, and it seems fine for chatting as far as I have tried it.
the encryption broke first just for the desktop app, later also for web browser several times, people couldn't see what I was writing to them, all while it worked in element. I was able to create nested rooms but nobody could see them for joining.. the overall experience was painful and it probably coated me my one chance to convince people to get away from discord after their policy change to record audio from calls
Oh shoot nvm then. I only used it for like two weeks before I went back to Element because of it's feature richness. And even during the time I used it I rarely chatted.
It sucks that Discord is being used for a bunch of large communities that would be better served by a forum for future access, but for just groups of friends, it's way easier to use than anything fediverse. And if I'm chatting with my friends, I don't NEED my shitposting to be easily searchable on Google.
I'm not against using Matrix, but I could only get select people to join me. Discord is where all the more tech-illiterate gamers live and sometimes I wanna hang out with them too. It's not the same as Lemmy, where I want to talk to complete strangers, so it doesn't matter too much if more than half a community is lost by migrating from reddit to lemmy.
Yes, that's my reason for still having it too. All my friends are on there. And getting them to change platform is almost as hard as getting a woman to like you.
Why does everything need to be free searchable on the internet?
Call me crazy but I don't want my group chats publicly available on the internet. Discord feels... private. I know they have access to all the data, but it's not like a public website, forum, or even an open irc chatroom. It's my walled garden to chat with friends, stream games, game chat, post dumb memes, etc.
That's like saying signal is cancer to free and open internet. Or hell, email because it's not indexed and searchable?
people don’t just use discord for private communication, and that’s what should be searchable. also, you do realize that discord doesn’t feature any encryption and some people can read your “private” messages, right?
Discord is a chat and the default setting of every server is that too see the content of it, you need to join the server.
It make sense for a chat.
However, companies and communities have largely misused discord and basically turned it in forums.
Lots and lots of knowledge is spread on these chats with no way of finding it unless you know in which server to join and provided they do not shut down at some point.
On top of that, the discord search feature is barebone at best.
"microtransactions" "exclusivities". Average silicon valley update gruel. The best that comes out of this is probably competition, while i like discord basic featureset as its solid, the UI is genuinly one of the worst things i have experienced.
It's not just me then... I consider myself tech savvy and I have such a hard time finding the message that notified me. Getting back to an old message is just impossible for me.
Dont concider yourself alone, ive theorized this "shittification" for a while now, as its partly a phenomenon partly entangled with next generation. Tech companies will cater to youth, the ones with the most engagement in online platforms. Once that company then achieves monopoly status. Youth thrives in its tribal behavior of either belonging or not. Then these companies basically have free reign try to put as much shit into it to prolong the usage and hours spend because they will know that regardless people will use it or you are out. Snapchat and new reddit UI exemplify exactly that.
Then we'll all run for Matrix in a few years once Discord goes full anti-consumer. As if none of us have ever been through a situation like this. Nope, never.
...Says the guy who's like in 50 Discord servers...Including one for friends and another for family.
Or as Cory Doctorow calls it - "Enshittification". They're now in the second stage - open the gates for other companies to market to Discord users:
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
I'm confused, this changes nothing for most users. All this does is allow creators that use Patreon tiers to grant certain roles in Discord to do this entirely through Discord. If you're not in one of these servers, this probably won't affect you.
Discord has been making a lot of bad decisions lately but imo this isn't one of them. It's not like they're forcing every server to setup paid channels.
Currently, many creators have Patreons setup and allow varying levels of access to their Discord servers based on Patreon tiers. Literally all this change does is give creators the option to do this entirely through Discord rather than using Patreon.
This is nothing new. Just a slightly different way to handle monetization.
I'm still using discord for basic party chat functions for my small group of friends. As long as that continues to work, I don't care at all about paid memes.
I generally hate that I have to go into other servers because indie games confuse a discord as being a replacement for forums and a wiki
For real. Crowdsec, a crowd sourced blocklist / basic IPS system doesnt really have a living forum. You ask question through unindexable discord threads.... so often times I cant just google an issue i am having with the app. I have to open up my damn Discord account while at work to get answers.
Oh wow, that's unexpected but I am now really exited!
My SO and me have been playing it quite a bit on our own, he more than me. Looking forward to play it together on the sofa :3
I might try this with my kid but it doesn't SOUND very interesting beyond just trying it out once in a while. But who knows, maybe I'm judging to harshly before trying it.
Do they even have a consumer version? I've seen them linked before but their whole site looks like they only want Enterprise users. The lowest pricing plan is "Business - $5/month/user". I'm not an organization and while that's not extremely expensive as an individual, it adds up if I'm paying separately for everyone in my family to join. My "senior executive discussions" consist of polling the family about what we want for dinner next week and what other groceries we need, not how we can achieve nationwide scalability for our household.
If they have offerings for individuals outside of business, they really need to point people to it and have a better landing page for them.
Element is just a client that can connect to the Matrix which is federated and decentralized just like Lemmy. Element is heavily promoted because element is the most well-developed client out there (made by the same people behind the matrix so they get the new features first) but far from the only one.
Regular element is free on all operating systems including windows, linux, android, etc. And there's even a web version.
And just like Lemmy you can register on any instance and communicate with any other (federated) instances. Matrix.org being the biggest one but there are countless and you can even self-host.
I typed a reply and it seems to have vanished, so my apologies if you end up getting two similar yet not identical replies to this.
Thanks for elaborating. I did end up trying out Fluffychat the last time I looked into Matrix. It looks like Element on the web isn't available on mobile, so I might give it a try later on my computer or download their app.
I still think the Element site should do a better job of explaining it's also available for personal users for free. I had to go 11 links into their footer to find that information, the pricing page has no mention of their personal offerings at all.
So it's just an expansion of what can be monetized within a server. I see nothing wrong with this. It even gives small indie devs like me a chance at a small revenue stream.
If you don't like the things a specific server is doing, leave. It's pretty simple.
I have no problem paying for a service or an app if it is good and fits my needs. It's the microtrans and battle passes that people generally have issues with. Paying for every little thing like a meme.
You seem to be forgetting that it is the server owner who decides these things. If you're on a server that is monetizing memes and you don't like it, leave.
Monetizing memes was given as an example. A stupid example Yes but only an example.
I found the PC Gamer article a bit confusing so I read other articles and understood it better. I get it now. It's not Discord setting these sub tiers etc. They are allowing more servers. Doesn't sound so bad. I guess depending how much a person uses a server they are a member of, they can help support the server and receive premium benefits and Discord who gets a cut of the purchases. All optional. Not too bad as it is up to the individual servers.
Edit: this can be a good thing and help support discord financially. So far we are lucky discord has not sold to a tech corp or gone public.
The thing is, between stuff like this and nitro, discord can fund itself without ads. Something like this literally helps everyone involved. If you don't want to donate to a server, then don't. It's literally that simple.
I get tired of people jumping on this bandwagon because it's popular to hate on discord. The people that are hating on it generally are the ones who fundamentally do not understand what is going on. They read some ragebait article and instead of digging a little bit deeper in trying to understand they just take it at face value. It's very irritating. The latest buzzword is "enshitification", which, by itself is a good descriptor for some things but these people throw it around so liberally that it loses all significance. "Oh an app did something I don't like and I'm not going to take the time to learn more about it ".
Think of it this way... Discord is doing a Patreon but for discord servers. This is cool. This is neat. It hurts exactly no one and helps potentially everyone. At the most it's a net zero effect for most users.
It's the beginning of the entire platform turning to shit. Because it's never enough money. More ads, more tracking, more locked in features.
This is the cycle of monetization. It gives you a small revenue stream, but only until users get fed up and leave. Because it's never enough money coming in. More more more.
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