Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#221

Post by dharmab » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

Jonovono wrote: post #110

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…

What do you feel is missing from Discord?

Tracking multiple threads of conversation in text. I'm not saying it needs Slack, HN or Reddit style threading, but some way to separate multiple topics of conversation that form within a channel.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#222

Post by chrononaut » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

beams_of_light wrote: post #206

etempleton wrote: post #127

I just don’t see what Discord’s path towards profitability is. Are they going to try to start an online store again? Sell enough Nitro subs? I think they are playing hard ball for a better acquisition deal, but they risk being irrelevant before ever getting a better deal.

I wish my workplace could use Discord instead of Teams. The drop-in voice channels would be so handy.

I am not a heavy Discord user (so there might be options around this?), but when I have used it, it seems like every person on the server is in every channel. I feel like that would be absolute chaos at a workplace. Not to mention the unless notification customization that would have to take place.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#223

Post by chrononaut » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

DethNinja wrote: post #78

mehlmao wrote: post #70

So what is Discord's path to profitability? They tried selling video games and closed the store not too long after launching it. Nitro/Server Boosts definitely don't come close to the cost of operation.

Advertisements I guess? I still cannot believe how fast they captured game chat market, even with lots of other competitors. Honestly I also would like to enter to this market but breaking the market share of discord will be very hard indeed.

To be fair, I think everyone always thinks about that regarding the incumbent(s). Xfire / Ventrilo / TeamSpeak all likely seemed like a daunting adversary at their peaks.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#224

Post by kitkat_new » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

mouldysammich wrote: post #131

I wish there was anything comparably easy to use and of the same quality or even in the vicinity in foss communication platforms. Mumble isnt easy to use but has great voice and terrible text, matrix and irc are both -- for most non techy people -- hard to use and esentially text only, jitsi is video conferencing, xmpp is mainly not about voice and suffers the same issues as matrix. I really hate the state of things…

u tried Matrix with Element? It doesn't feel as bad as you describe

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#225

Post by DoctorOW » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

MentallyRetired wrote: post #173

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…

The kids are using Guilded and dropping Discord these days, from what I hear.

Just Googling it, I haven't seen what makes it better than Discord. It reads like an alternative for the sake of competing. Not a bad idea, but I think it'll always be lagging behind like the wake of Facebook/YouTube/Reddit clones we've seen over the years.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#226

Post by O_H_E » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

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…

I [and household] are now in a similar situation.

At first, students got to use what they were already use to, but when the pandemic got painful and everybody flooded to online, thing went crazy. Discord is freaking enormous in that area rn. Servers for High school classes, university cohorts (ie. CS'24), university programs (ie. Electrical Engineering), There is even a course I am taking at uni where we have an official server with the teaching team, profs, auth with uni credentials, and a freaking ad-hoc ticketing system.

It is bonkers how much systematization is done through these bots.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#227

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

chrononaut wrote: post #222

beams_of_light wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish my workplace could use Discord instead of Teams. The drop-in voice channels would be so handy.

I am not a heavy Discord user (so there might be options around this?), but when I have used it, it seems like every person on the server is in every channel. I feel like that would be absolute chaos at a workplace. Not to mention the unless notification customization that would have to take place.

That's the default - if you can see a channel you can read it and be pinged by it. Roles can restrict this, and you can configurably ping roles and remove the ability of regular users to do things like @here and @everyone.

Discord's permission system is one of its killer features, IMO.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#228

Post by sbagel » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

Discord does not give users a choice to opt-out of their wildly invasive data collection methods including logging executables running on your system while the desktop client is open, not just games. This data alone is very valuable.

Comment from a 2019 support thread "I am pretty flabbergasted that people aren't making a bigger deal of this than they are. Discord actively monitors your executables, but the larger concern for people now seems to be its inaccuracy in identifying them as games. As if to say "make it better at identifying games" instead of "stop scanning my programs"."

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600307...

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#229

Post by hemloc_io » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

O_H_E wrote: post #226

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…

I [and household] are now in a similar situation. At first, students got to use what they were already use to, but when the pandemic got painful and everybody flooded to online, thing went crazy. Discord is freaking enormous in that area rn. Servers for High school classes, university cohorts (ie. CS'24), university programs (ie. Electrical Engineering), There is even a course I am taking at uni where we have an offi…

Haha love how people have rediscovered the functionality and joys of IRC and the like!

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#230

Post by uncletaco » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

3PS wrote: post #141

Jonovono wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you feel is missing from Discord?

Personally, I wish the desktop client was a bit more lightweight. I understand why they went with Electron, and I don't think they could have afforded their speed of iterated development as a small company otherwise, but I still wish their app was a bit lighter on my laptop. I'm especially disappointed that cordless [1], a very usable third-party terminal-based client for Discord, was banned due to a ToS violation. S…

and with this lightweightness the ability to customize the client more, maybe even create popouts to monitor multiple chats simultaneously or do one server per window.