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Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

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Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#41

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

Epenthesis wrote: post #24
rvz wrote: post #4

Let's hope that Discord doesn't end up going the way of Slack. Since Slack got overconfident over Microsoft Teams and lost and got acquired by Salesforce.

As someone who's never used Discord, what's it do better than Slack? Superficially other than aesthetics/integrations, they seem basically identical

Discord is more like a ventrilo replacement for gamers. It was primarily voice chat in its early days. They've done a lot of work to make the chatroom space on par with any other chat application you'd use otherwise. They also now allow for direct screenshare and game streaming.

I wouldn't ever have considered Discord for Enterprise use at a serious company, but I guess it could do everything Slack can. For personal use it's more versatile for group stuff like gaming or group presentations (my friends have used it for music/video production meetings).

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#42

Post by munk-a »

rvz wrote: post #4

Let's hope that Discord doesn't end up going the way of Slack. Since Slack got overconfident over Microsoft Teams and lost and got acquired by Salesforce.

I don't think they got overconfident at all - I think that slack was relatively well built but lacking too much of a value proposition to differentiate themselves. Then they got acquired before anyone realized how much of their usage was marketing driven and how little was driven by the quality of their application.

I'm not saying it's bad by any means - in fact the search functionality is pretty sweet... but there is very little there that couldn't be out competed.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#43

Post by happytoexplain »

curiousgal wrote: post #9
donkarma wrote: post #3

Considering the state of Teams they really needed Discord for their amazing technology of actually being semi responsive

Been using Teams for school for two years now and have zero complaints.

Sometimes you need to be a "power user" to encounter all a product's flaws. I've been using it professionally for 3.5 years, and I touch pretty much every feature. I had high hopes because I loved a lot of the decisions they were making, so I started maintaining a list of issues/bugs. I reported them when I had time to describe them well. After a year, it got into the hundreds, with some that were pretty dramatic, and I stopped caring enough to continue, because it was clearly not going to be the product I was hoping it could be. Since then, the most obvious problem that has happened is slowdown. It takes full seconds to do most navigation/loading in our (large) team. The whole affair made me truly sad, frustrated, and angry.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#44

Post by ehsankia »

devwastaken wrote: post #34
COGlory wrote: post #2

What about Discord besides network effect makes it a desirable holding? Do they have any technological advantage?

They have users. If they wanted to they could become the next Steam tomorrow by simply selling games and giving deals. The engaged userbase of discord far surpasses steam, epic, and all other gaming clients. Valve doesn't care about competing or innovating, theyll simply roll over and let it happen. But like any startup discord is created with monopoly money and therefore they don't have any actual knowledge, experti…

> simply selling games and giving deals

They already did try that, and they also then tried pivoting to subscription model (a la Gamepass), both failed and eventually they closed their game store entirely.

You could argue that maybe they tried it too soon, but I don't think so. The competition is kinda big with Microsoft, Steam and Epic. I don't think people want to own games on their chat app.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#45

Post by formerly_proven »

wayoutthere wrote: post #27
COGlory wrote: post #2

What about Discord besides network effect makes it a desirable holding? Do they have any technological advantage?

Brand; the days of “technological advantage” as a differentiator are over. Technology progress has plateaued in a great many industries over the last decade so it’s all about the product experience these days. Honestly tho, Google could instantly leapfrog its competitors in the space by acquiring Discord. The Google ecosystem is desperately in need of a decent collaboration tool and everything Google tried to build i…

> Brand; the days of “technological advantage” as a differentiator are over.

There is a vast gulf even in terms of „just working“ between garbage like Microsoft Teams and something like Discord.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#47

Post by meristohm »

TkTech wrote: post #18
red_trumpet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would a non-gaming version distinguish from the current one?

It's hard to pitch discord in the workplace, especially against an incumbent like Slack or Teams. It comes across as very "casual" and unprofessional, which is a shame, because it really is a top-quality product. It's never seemed to be a focus of Discord, it's just the niche they've chosen. Even their own homepage description doesn't mention work: > Whether you’re part of a school club, gaming group, worldwide art c…

I’ve used Discord only for gaming and I would prefer all the non-voice stuff to be able to be hidden. If it wasn’t the most reliable audio for group voice chat that we’ve tried (Steam voice is still an echo-y mess for us three, Signal wouldn’t connect us, and then I conceded and went back to Discord), we’d use something else. I don’t like that it tracks what we’re playing, that it tries to be friendly with its treacly messages (it’s a tool; my shovel doesn’t say “welcome back, I missed you!”...), and that it keeps deleted accounts around. I can see that others may want all these and other Facebook-esque features. I like that Discord uses .opus codec, and that the audio is dependable and clear. Maybe Mumble to try next? What open-source options might work for enterprise?

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#48

Post by Notorious_BLT »

antris wrote: post #36
toastercat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UX and featureset of Discord is impressive. The UX in particular is superior to Slack, Teams, or any other modern chat application I've used. I'd like to move my group to Matrix, but Element (fka Riot.im) is nowhere near as polished or user-friendly as Discord.

Have you ever tried to disable notifications on Discord? I have tried to do it 500 times and still get those annoying red dots with numbers, red dots without numbers, and just a few weeks ago I started getting random notification sounds (after I had disabled them before) without any clue where they were coming from. My only option is trying to disable all notifications and all notification sounds everywhere, but stil…

Right-click the server icon, select "notifications settings", press "Mute ". When it asks how long, select "until I turn it back on". This will kill the white dot unless you're mentioned (or @everyone'd). Its a little tricky to find but that will solve your issue

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#49

Post by ergot_vacation »

coldpie wrote: post #35
larinzod wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye, nothing like investor pressure and quarterly growth targets to kill an otherwise good company/product.

This is how tech startups work, isn't it? Use investors to build a product with no business model, then the founders cash out via purchase or IPO, and soon after the fact that you have no business model comes to light and the product falls apart trying to find a business model, while users move on to the next shiny thing with no business model.

Glad I'm not the only one thinking this. Seems obvious, but I always felt like I was missing something. How is it that most of the tech/SV world is just the same con being run over and over again, yet it keeps working? Does it operate on the same psychological glitch as a lottery? Do the giant corps buying these startups all think "I know how it's been in the past, but surely THIS startup WON'T turn to shit the moment I buy it because it was never a real business to begin with! This time for sure!"

Or are the real suckers the investors, and the corps are just doing these purchases in a performative capacity to keep razzle-dazzling them?

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#50

Post by antris »

Notorious_BLT wrote: post #48
antris wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to disable notifications on Discord? I have tried to do it 500 times and still get those annoying red dots with numbers, red dots without numbers, and just a few weeks ago I started getting random notification sounds (after I had disabled them before) without any clue where they were coming from. My only option is trying to disable all notifications and all notification sounds everywhere, but stil…

Right-click the server icon, select "notifications settings", press "Mute ". When it asks how long, select "until I turn it back on". This will kill the white dot unless you're mentioned (or @everyone'd). Its a little tricky to find but that will solve your issue

I want to change my global settings, not server settings. I'm on dozens of Discords and join/leave them and change their order on the sidebar all the time. Going through each of them (and remembering to do it every time I join a new one) sounds like a nightmare. Every time I hear/see a notification that I don't want, I'd have to go through all those dialogs for all of my servers? Nope, not gonna happen.
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