Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#331

Post by alphabetting » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

tru3_power wrote: post #317

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 voice chat rooms reminds me exactly of this program called Ventrillo or “vent” as we used to call it back when I was in high school. I’m officially old! https://www.ventrilo.com/

there's some incredible vent trolling content on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5AkIfgioA4

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#332

Post by judge2020 » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:10 AM UTC

Lorin wrote: post #240

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.

They'd make a fortune by providing Discord as an in-game communications solution/integration for commonly used game engines such as Unreal/Lumberyard. Make it free up to 1000 concurrent users, then $x/MAU at plateaus /w reduced rates + $ for extras such as white labeling. The current in-game Discord overlay is an end-user 'hack' by comparison. Games/applications are notorious for limited/locked-in communication syste…

Eh, maybe they do have some existing integration with a big customer, but they already tried this with https://discord.com/developers/docs/game-sdk/discord-voice and it doesn't seem to get any new features or updates, plus you can't submit new games to the store to use it.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#333

Post by gabereiser » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

lacker wrote: post #329

tru3_power wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voice chat rooms reminds me exactly of this program called Ventrillo or “vent” as we used to call it back when I was in high school. I’m officially old! https://www.ventrilo.com/

okay oldie... when I was in high school if you wanted to talk to your friends while playing games with them you both needed a second phone line, so your 56k modems could use the other line to play Doom

Roger Wilco

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#334

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

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.

[deleted]

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#335

Post by ajkjk » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

hyperpl wrote: post #285

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you install the desktop app? Isn't it Electron anyways, so aren't you basically running the same thing as you would in the browser, except now you've replaced the exceptionally well sandboxed, trusted browser with an outdated, unsandboxed browser and have given an app that doesn't need this access to your entire system?

Not sure why this is downvoted (if that's what the light gray represents). I wouldn't install any Electron app when an app works equally well within a browser like Firefox, doubly so in my case considering my Firefox is running in firejail already.

People like you and the OP are rather rare among users. Most people just do not care about the data collection or the Electron-ness. They just want to use Discord.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#336

Post by de6u99er » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

Here's an interesting blog post from 3 years ago titled "How Discord Handles Two and Half Million Concurrent Voice Users using WebRTC" [1]. I guess the number of connections has increased in the meanwhile.

[1] https://blog.discord.com/how-discord-handles-two-and-half-mi...

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#337

Post by judge2020 » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #125

tinus_hn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that? Why would it be expensive to run a glorified irc server network?

Discord has voice chat, file uploads, and image and video hosting. It’s not just glorified IRC. The bandwidth and storage costs are real.

Not to mention the real issues with trust & safety and other legal issues with ugc.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#338

Post by nerdponx » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

tru3_power wrote: post #317

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 voice chat rooms reminds me exactly of this program called Ventrillo or “vent” as we used to call it back when I was in high school. I’m officially old! https://www.ventrilo.com/

I remember I first heard about Discord as a Vent/Teamspeak/Raidcall competitor, and I'm pretty sure that was intended from the beginning.

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#339

Post by exhaze » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

lacker wrote: post #329

tru3_power wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voice chat rooms reminds me exactly of this program called Ventrillo or “vent” as we used to call it back when I was in high school. I’m officially old! https://www.ventrilo.com/

okay oldie... when I was in high school if you wanted to talk to your friends while playing games with them you both needed a second phone line, so your 56k modems could use the other line to play Doom

Why would you subject yourself to that? Just have them come over and help you carry your heavy tower and even heavier CRT to LAN at their house, even if it’s a mile away (me and friends literally did this in Fremont, CA - though I believe it might have been a bit less than a mile)

Re: Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft

#340

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

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.

Try using Teams for school and work with different user accounts - and contrast that with the experience on e.g. Slack where different places managed by different organizations just work.