Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 515 posts

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#111

Post by wussboy »

decebalus1 wrote: post #15
dekerta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teams definitely feels like it was rushed to market to take advantage of the pandemic. I'm really sad our company moved us from Slack to Teams. It's so much worse, especially on Linux

Teams has been rushed to market 4 years ago..

And it was still better than the dumpster fire that was Skype for Business. I loved how it would push a message to the device that it thought you were active on, but that there wasn't a centralized storage of messages. Messages sent to Device 1 didn't exist on Device 2.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#112

Post by aphextron »

COGlory wrote: post #2

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

The network effect is what makes it desirable. Anyone can push bits these days. Web technology is completely commoditized. But a strong brand and a great product team is priceless (or at least worth more than $10bn).

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#113

Post by m01 »

COGlory wrote: post #2

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

They use(d) Elixir (based on Erlang VM) [1]. WhatsApp apparently considered Erlang to be one of the reasons why they could serve such a massive userbase with a tiny team [2], which I guess is a tech advantage.

In any case, I enjoyed reading Discord's tech blogs on Elixir.

[1] https://blog.discord.com/tagged/erlang

[2] https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-us...

EDIT: added reference and clarified that I don't know if they still use Elixir.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#114

Post by coldpie »

delecti wrote: post #109
coldpie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they are trying to sell/IPO is pretty strong evidence that they are not profitable, I think. But regardless, I will give them massive props for not just doing the ad thing, which is the last gasp of this style of startup before they finish circling the drain. Lookin' at you, Imgur.

Imgur has had ads since a couple months after launch. Nearly 98% of Imgur's lifespan has had ads.

In the last ~6 months, Imgur added forced video ads when uploading new images: https://www.resetera.com/threads/hmm-so-we-now-have-to-watch... https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/k5lwus/imgur...

Hilariously, I found this article from about a year before they added those ads: https://digiday.com/marketing/imgur-diversifying-beyond-ad-r...

This is what flailing around trying to find a business model looks like. If Imgur was profitable without those ads, they wouldn't be abusing their users like this.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#115

Post by fuzzy2 »

donkarma wrote: post #3

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

But the main problem with Teams is its low-performance GUI (Electron-based). And from what I hear about Discord, it's the same there.

There's other minor problems like insane chat latency, but I can work with that. Voice and Video generally works fine.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#116

Post by nisegami »

jskrn wrote: post #83
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.

Personally, I'm finding the transition from Slack to Teams absolutely maddening. Do people actually prefer Teams or is it that many large enterprises already had Office 365 licenses?

>many large enterprises already had Office 365 licenses

Hit the nail on the head.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#117

Post by thatguy0900 »

wongarsu wrote: post #57
coldpie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Discord has a business model: Get people engaged in a community, sell them Nitro so they can boost their communities [1][2]. The "buy benefits for you community" scheme is wildly successful in mobile games, so I wouldn't be surprised if it works well for Discord. 1: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028038352-S... 2: https://discord.com/nitro

The second they try to monetize discord like a mobile game is the second all of my friends stop using it and hop to the next silicon Valley chat app that pops up

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#118

Post by upofadown »

lrvick wrote: post #86
fish45 wrote: post #77

Speaking as an 18 y.o. doing my first year college online, I wouldn't have made it through quarantine without Discord. I've a server with my high school friends and since Discord lowers the barrier to join a voice call so much it's super chill to just hop in a channel when doing homework or playing a game or whatever else, and anyone else who's free can join. I really wish there were competition, but there's nothing…

Why not matrix?

Wouldn't Mumble be closer to the described use case?

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#119

Post by CodesInChaos »

jskrn wrote: post #83
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.

Personally, I'm finding the transition from Slack to Teams absolutely maddening. Do people actually prefer Teams or is it that many large enterprises already had Office 365 licenses?

The voice call part of teams works better in my experience and has a higher user limit.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#120

Post by shagie »

ivraatiems wrote: post #80
xevrem wrote: post #12

so.... Discord will be a hellscape in 3-5 years as its inevitably destroyed by corporate greed?

Better than being a hellscape in 6 months-2 years due to forced integration with Teams.

My tea leaf reading suggests that it would have been a closer interaction to Xbox and gaming than Teams and corporate.
Post reply on HN