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Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

fortune.com

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Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#121

Post by cootsnuck »

rurp wrote: post #117
jordanb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. I'm forever grateful to Thiel for that clip, and to Musk for his crippling Twitter addiction. It was pretty impossible to get regular people to understand that folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers when all they…

A frustrating aspect of the AI debates has been the number of people who believe people like Sam Altman who say that the immense wealth created by AGI would be distributed to the masses to improve their lives. The notion that the mega wealthy Elon/Sams/Bezos elites are going to willingly give up unprecedented wealth because millions of people have become unemployed and impoverished is so wildly out of step with how t…

Yea, it's puzzling to me that this isn't asked of folks like Altman and Amodei in every interview. Maybe it's because Altman would just start shilling his eye scanning orb and start repeating "WORLD COIN" ad nauseum. Either way, they should be getting pressed on this by all media.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#122

Post by inetknght »

rocketpastsix wrote: post #90
n8cpdx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me how Discord got so big in the first place, particularly for non-gaming uses? I saw this coming a mile away when folks started ditching slack for Discord - Slack being problematic because a) it was profit-seeking and would use its leverage over your personal data to seek rent and b) it was antithetical to the open web. Discord has the exact same two issues so was obviously not a solution. Why…

As far as I can tell, Discord doesn't delete history so you can join an older discord and scroll back. 99.99% of slacks that are free lose history after some arbitrary timeframe (used to be 10,000 messages, now I think its 90 days). Plus you can connect Discord to your Steam/Playstation/Xbox account, which gamers like.

> 99.99% of slacks that are free lose history after some arbitrary timeframe (used to be 10,000 messages, now I think its 90 days).

This is exactly the reason cited for several non-gaming discords I'm in.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#123

Post by giraffe_lady »

troosevelt wrote: post #103
blackcatsec wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm not sure many of the commenters realize that this is the targeted plan. They're already succeeding with over 20 (mostly Republican) states requiring age verification to access pornography. The whole point of this plan is to then gate LGBTQ content behind the age gates, and then criminalize with extremely harsh penalties if teenagers somehow find a way around the age gates. It's a slow process that's taking y…

I think it's possible if not probable you are correct, but a lot of this is not as coordinated as you might think. Religious conservatives just think porn is the devil, and more and more, I find non-religious people that view it as such, too, without some wider plot to take rights away from gay people. They're just prudes and they're happy to remove those rights when given the chance. This certainly is the average co…

I think you're the one not knowing your enemies here. There is a plan to strip queer people of rights, it is already well underway. You cannot possibly have an effective plan of opposition if you don't acknowledge the incredible economic, social, and technological resources that have been spent spreading and nurturing the prejudices that you can now call "uncoordinated." A lot of the individuals furthering these measures do not identify themselves with "a plot," sure, but it doesn't mean they don't have a role in it.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#124

Post by dbg31415 »

n8cpdx wrote: post #75
rocketpastsix wrote: post #44

the damage is already done though. Discord just burned years of goodwill and trust. Im in a few discord communities and while they aren't moving Im not looking to join any more right now because of this whole thing.

Can someone explain to me how Discord got so big in the first place, particularly for non-gaming uses? I saw this coming a mile away when folks started ditching slack for Discord - Slack being problematic because a) it was profit-seeking and would use its leverage over your personal data to seek rent and b) it was antithetical to the open web. Discord has the exact same two issues so was obviously not a solution. Why…

> Can someone explain to me how Discord got so big in the first place, particularly for non-gaming uses?

It won by simply building a vastly superior product during its growth phase.

For gamers, it replaced fragmented, clunky, or paid alternatives (TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, Mumble, Skype) with a frictionless, free app that had excellent voice quality and modern UX.

It worked so perfectly for gaming communities that non-gamers inevitably took notice, realizing it was effectively a better, free version of Slack for community building.

But that was the user-acquisition era. Now, we're seeing the classic enshittification phase.

Every other notification badge is an alert trying to sell you something. I still use it, but the product development focus seems to have entirely shifted to selling $9.99/month "blinky bullshit." I understand they have to monetize eventually, but it's exhausting.

Ultimately, it got big because for a few years, it was undeniably the best, cleanest chat client on the market. It was just relentlessly good for the user.

Whether it stays good, or follows down the Microsoft path of turning into a full-on ad-distribution network remains to be seen. But right now, despite all the crap sales, it's still pretty good... (=

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#125

Post by mullingitover »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #102
rideontime wrote: post #20

I'm glad to see "Peter Thiel-backed" becoming a widely-recognized epithet.

I think it's a bad trend. It's kind of a meta version of an ad hominem attack. The headline contained no information about why Discord is making the decision, only that there's a bad name associated with the company. The name of the company isn't even mentioned in the headline. This is prioritizing hate over information.

Having the name associated with the company says a lot, actually. The man is the Forrest Gump of backing creepy companies.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#126

Post by cootsnuck »

savanaly wrote: post #110
sznio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about the same recently, in the context of the Epstein files. You don't become a billionaire by being moral. Each time you don't do something because it's wrong, you lost opportunity to make more money. You start with smaller things, then your standards slide more and more, until you are a billionaire, and you're so corrupt there isn't anything for you to do except make more money. Which makes me wonder, ho…

Can't you also make money by making a good decision that benefits you and another party? I feel like I do this all the time, just on a relatively small scale.

"Good" is subjective. But yes, all wealth creation requires working with other people. No one is an island. And most people are increasingly disturbed by the types of decisions required to amass more wealth than sovereign nations.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#127

Post by bityard »

sznio wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Empathy and the levels of wealth accumulation in scope are incompatible imho. They are the paperclip maximizers we were warned about.

I thought about the same recently, in the context of the Epstein files. You don't become a billionaire by being moral. Each time you don't do something because it's wrong, you lost opportunity to make more money. You start with smaller things, then your standards slide more and more, until you are a billionaire, and you're so corrupt there isn't anything for you to do except make more money. Which makes me wonder, ho…

If making increasingly immoral decisions is all it takes to be a billionaire... then man, I have truly been wasting my life's potential

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#128

Post by blackcatsec »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #123
troosevelt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible if not probable you are correct, but a lot of this is not as coordinated as you might think. Religious conservatives just think porn is the devil, and more and more, I find non-religious people that view it as such, too, without some wider plot to take rights away from gay people. They're just prudes and they're happy to remove those rights when given the chance. This certainly is the average co…

I think you're the one not knowing your enemies here. There is a plan to strip queer people of rights, it is already well underway. You cannot possibly have an effective plan of opposition if you don't acknowledge the incredible economic, social, and technological resources that have been spent spreading and nurturing the prejudices that you can now call "uncoordinated." A lot of the individuals furthering these meas…

It's certainly amped up in coordination over the last decade with the mixing of the tech oligarchs and the traditional religious oligarchs.

What it reminds me of is the situation in Saudi Arabia. The religious elite allows the Saud family to rule all of the politics and economics of the government so as long as the religious elite have the ability to enforce religious law on the population. It's an unholy union of church and state and this marrying of those two in the United States should absolutely fucking terrify everyone.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#129

Post by jacquesm »

renewiltord wrote: post #115
sznio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about the same recently, in the context of the Epstein files. You don't become a billionaire by being moral. Each time you don't do something because it's wrong, you lost opportunity to make more money. You start with smaller things, then your standards slide more and more, until you are a billionaire, and you're so corrupt there isn't anything for you to do except make more money. Which makes me wonder, ho…

[flagged]

We're all capable of seeing the difference between Taylor Swift and Epstein and his crowd. Well, almost all, apparently.

Re: Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

#130

Post by toomuchtodo »

bityard wrote: post #127
sznio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about the same recently, in the context of the Epstein files. You don't become a billionaire by being moral. Each time you don't do something because it's wrong, you lost opportunity to make more money. You start with smaller things, then your standards slide more and more, until you are a billionaire, and you're so corrupt there isn't anything for you to do except make more money. Which makes me wonder, ho…

If making increasingly immoral decisions is all it takes to be a billionaire... then man, I have truly been wasting my life's potential

You also have to be lucky. Have you tried being more lucky?
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