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Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

wsj.com

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Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#21

Post by mrd3v0 »

toastal wrote: post #16

RIP to all those FOSS projects that thought it was good to build their communities solely on proprietary chat. I don’t expect the average folk to understand the ethical, privacy, or ownership issues, but in the software community, I do. Now your members get ads, & those ads are almost certainly expecting to siphon user data (as if Discord isn’t doing enough of that as is & not buying “seem minimally intrusive”). The…

> then use bridge/gateways if you want to support these proprietary, privacy sapping platforms.

These bridges do in fact send a lot of data still to the proprietary, privacy sapping platforms, even of those who are not using them, no?

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#22

Post by ineedaj0b »

thih9 wrote: post #18

Are there any laws against enshittification / unsustainable business practices? Sounds like an overreaction on my part, given the news is about something as small as ads. At the same time it’s an intentional worsening of the UX to increase profits. It’s possible because the provider has control over user data/community. And it’s likely not the last time this is happening. Perhaps we need more laws like in EU, so that…

You’ve really gotta separate is/ought in your world view.

Is it good to make laws according to taste; ought we do so to help create the world we like?

The problem with the ‘world we like’ is it might not make sense economically - and will fail.

It generally better to allow even playing grounds. Our desires for what what ought to happen are often short sighted.

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#23

Post by junon »

williamvds wrote: post #20

Maybe, just MAYBE, people will start reconsidering putting their social communities on this awful service and locking their social lives to it. I'm gonna look into hosting Matrix servers or something. I expect that soon their policy of banning client modifications (for a web app) will be applied to ban users with adblockers.

Tell me another platform that is free, has realtime chat, voice and video, has stable service, allows sharing images and other media, with good ownership management...

and is open source.

And yes, we've tried Matrix. IRC doesn't speak to people anymore either. Slack is worse.

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#24

Post by Svenskunganka »

So far the comments here seem to think they are introducing generic ads in the client, while the ads the article describes is to allow game studios to offer virtual rewards (aka hats) in their games when you livestream your gameplay to other Discord users, and those users (viewers) will then be seeing ads while watching that gameplay. This is somewhat similar to the Twitch Bounty Board for streamers and "drops" for viewers. Discord calls this "Sponsored Quests", and seems very unobtrusive.

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#26

Post by t-sauer »

Lucasoato wrote: post #12

I hate ads, I hope they will limit them to a small amount for free users, but remember the issue Discord has been able to solve: we don’t have to waste hours anymore managing Teamspeak servers. Also it’s much more than a voice-only communication channel, it’s becoming a community, some sort of Facebook group with steroids!

It becoming a Facebook group on steroids is my biggest issue with Discord. So much knowledge, information and documentation is lost in an unindexed proprietary black hole. It‘s a chat that people started to abuse for all kinds of things just because it can be done. Often time normal forums would be more beneficial for everyone involved.

Also I host my own TS server since 2019 and never had to deal with any real problems.

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#27

Post by dijit »

junon wrote: post #23
williamvds wrote: post #20

Maybe, just MAYBE, people will start reconsidering putting their social communities on this awful service and locking their social lives to it. I'm gonna look into hosting Matrix servers or something. I expect that soon their policy of banning client modifications (for a web app) will be applied to ban users with adblockers.

Tell me another platform that is free, has realtime chat, voice and video, has stable service, allows sharing images and other media, with good ownership management... and is open source. And yes, we've tried Matrix. IRC doesn't speak to people anymore either. Slack is worse.

Wanting everything for free is certainly a problem though.

I’m not sure how anything can compete with free and convenient, even things that work really well that take time to set up are hugely inferior because hosting is a cost if nothing else.

If something is free you have a responsibility to be even more diligent to understand what happens when it goes away, is no longer free, or how they plan to extract value from you. Discord is not a charity or government subsidized project.

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#28

Post by anthk »

junon wrote: post #23
williamvds wrote: post #20

Maybe, just MAYBE, people will start reconsidering putting their social communities on this awful service and locking their social lives to it. I'm gonna look into hosting Matrix servers or something. I expect that soon their policy of banning client modifications (for a web app) will be applied to ban users with adblockers.

Tell me another platform that is free, has realtime chat, voice and video, has stable service, allows sharing images and other media, with good ownership management... and is open source. And yes, we've tried Matrix. IRC doesn't speak to people anymore either. Slack is worse.

Jabber?

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#29

Post by anthk »

dijit wrote: post #27
junon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me another platform that is free, has realtime chat, voice and video, has stable service, allows sharing images and other media, with good ownership management... and is open source. And yes, we've tried Matrix. IRC doesn't speak to people anymore either. Slack is worse.

Wanting everything for free is certainly a problem though. I’m not sure how anything can compete with free and convenient, even things that work really well that take time to set up are hugely inferior because hosting is a cost if nothing else. If something is free you have a responsibility to be even more diligent to understand what happens when it goes away, is no longer free, or how they plan to extract value from…

There are public servers for Jabber working just fine.

Re: Discord to Start Showing Ads for Gamers to Boost Revenue

#30

Post by dijit »

anthk wrote: post #29
dijit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting everything for free is certainly a problem though. I’m not sure how anything can compete with free and convenient, even things that work really well that take time to set up are hugely inferior because hosting is a cost if nothing else. If something is free you have a responsibility to be even more diligent to understand what happens when it goes away, is no longer free, or how they plan to extract value from…

There are public servers for Jabber working just fine.

and I run an IRC network from my own pocket.

But when I die there needs to be some altruistic nerd who has the capability and desire to take it over.

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