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Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

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Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#171

Post by sadness3 »

mihaifm wrote: post #104
sadness3 wrote: post #93

I have a bad feeling about this. Discord essentially does one thing really well. I don't want to see it go down the way of so many chat platforms trying to be everything and becoming a bloated mess. Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well. The first of many casualties, no doubt. It makes me despair of business models which re…

Problem is the tech world is changing very fast. If you're going to sit idle hoping to make the same amount of cash every year, you're going to disappear within 5-6 years. Not liking where Discord is headed either, just saying some change is necessary not only for growing, but for staying relevant.

It takes significant evolution to just keep doing what you set out to do well. Running a successful mechanics business to repair cars means continuously updating your skills and tools. Eventually you become a flying car repair shop. It doesn't mean you have to grow to encompass every aspect of the automobile industry and compete with Repco and Mobil.

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#172

Post by lotsofpulp »

nicoburns wrote: post #161
southerntofu wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame capitalism for aiming for profit, not actual service to people.

Yep, it goes one level abive execs. Execs who don't do these things get replaced! The shareholder model is broken.

What is broken about it? Did anyone tell the discord creators to involve other shareholders?

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#173

Post by sdflhasjd »

buro9 wrote: post #133

A killer use of Discord... push-to-talk audio connection to everyone else in the room. If your team is on-call and incident management could be improved, just try putting your team in a Discord room and see what happens. Don't put managers in there, just the engineers. It works great.

I'd hardly call it a killer feature when it's something Teamspeak, etc have had for ages. The killer feature, i.e that which sets it apart from the rest, is the rich text chat and that it's free.

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#174

Post by zelphirkalt »

mihaifm wrote: post #104
sadness3 wrote: post #93

I have a bad feeling about this. Discord essentially does one thing really well. I don't want to see it go down the way of so many chat platforms trying to be everything and becoming a bloated mess. Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well. The first of many casualties, no doubt. It makes me despair of business models which re…

Problem is the tech world is changing very fast. If you're going to sit idle hoping to make the same amount of cash every year, you're going to disappear within 5-6 years. Not liking where Discord is headed either, just saying some change is necessary not only for growing, but for staying relevant.

I would not confuse the need for further developing ones tech, with the need for growing (in employees, customers, and whatever else). A product can stay relevant, if it keeps up with the tech, but does not necessarily need to capture every possible customer on the planet, not even as a goal.

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#175

Post by bruce343434 »

alpaca128 wrote: post #115
ejj28 wrote: post #38

Every single Discord-related post here I see comments about the "bad ux". I'm a heavy Discord user and I have no complaints with the UX, I find it pretty intuitive to be honest. I'm also constantly seeing people in shock that people would choose to use Discord over IRC/Matrix/Teamspeak/Mumble. I find Discord to be light years ahead of anything else available, and for an average person who's going to have a hard time…

What's intuitive about having to click one of the tiniest buttons in a corner of the screen to disconnect voice chat? I literally killed the process a couple times when I started using Discord because I couldn't find it. Why can I double-click to join a channel but not leave with any UI in the same area? It also took me a while to figure out how to quit the damn thing. The only way seems to be right-clicking the tray…

How about clicking the bright red phone hang up button.

Other than that, most chat apps minimize to tray these days. You can toggle that behavior in the settings.

With your last point, I agree. It's just inherent to being an electron app I guess.

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#176

Post by lotsofpulp »

sdflhasjd wrote: post #173
buro9 wrote: post #133

A killer use of Discord... push-to-talk audio connection to everyone else in the room. If your team is on-call and incident management could be improved, just try putting your team in a Discord room and see what happens. Don't put managers in there, just the engineers. It works great.

I'd hardly call it a killer feature when it's something Teamspeak, etc have had for ages. The killer feature, i.e that which sets it apart from the rest, is the rich text chat and that it's free.

I thought the killer feature is that it is free and convenient. No one has to do any work to setup a server like with Teamspeak or Ventrilo. It has been a long time since I played video games, but back then those were the two popular options.

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#177

Post by southerntofu »

hhsbz wrote: post #159
southerntofu wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a few examples, for someone who's never used Discord?

https://i.imgur.com/dy13lcm.png The entire app was full of crap like this - it's not funny or quirky, it's practically baby talk.

That's pretty cringy indeed, though i must say i laughed at the idea of a program snuggling into my systray :)

Not sure how well that would localize in other languages though. Thanks for the examples!

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#178

Post by sadness3 »

hhsbz wrote: post #134
sadness3 wrote: post #93

I have a bad feeling about this. Discord essentially does one thing really well. I don't want to see it go down the way of so many chat platforms trying to be everything and becoming a bloated mess. Recently, they replaced the fun, gamery loading messages with something more "formal". Now it does it's one thing slightly less well. The first of many casualties, no doubt. It makes me despair of business models which re…

I use discord only for gaming but the entire app was full of text strings that made me cringe. I'm glad they have got rid of them.

It didn't matter to me that half of the loading messages weren't funny. I could tell from the moment I opened the app that they understood who I was and why I was there. I was there to have fun, and they got me. Now they have started the journey to be all things to all people, and I will not be surprised if they end up as nothing to anyone.

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#179

Post by [deleted] »

sdflhasjd wrote: post #173
buro9 wrote: post #133

A killer use of Discord... push-to-talk audio connection to everyone else in the room. If your team is on-call and incident management could be improved, just try putting your team in a Discord room and see what happens. Don't put managers in there, just the engineers. It works great.

I'd hardly call it a killer feature when it's something Teamspeak, etc have had for ages. The killer feature, i.e that which sets it apart from the rest, is the rich text chat and that it's free.

[deleted]

Re: Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else

#180

Post by arc-in-space »

Gunax wrote: post #17

I despise discord. It's bloatware. It has constant popups that are difficult to disable. I do read their tech posts on HN, and they are always fascinating. But it seems to me like a product that the MBAs have taken a over.

That's a bit strange. Aside from the rare changelog or new features, I only get any popups when I log into it from a new machine, or through private mode. Mostly using the desktop version, mobile occasionally.
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