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Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

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Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#151

Post by egypturnash »

m-i-l wrote: post #108

The article doesn't cover this, but how do people discover these group chats? All the Discord servers I've joined I've essentially found by word-of-mouth, which doesn't seem very high tech. In the old days you'd find the interesting online forums by "surfing the web".

I feel there is an argument that this is one of the reasons people are gravitating to private chats. They’re invitation only. You’re not running the risk of your offhand snark about something with political ramifications getting besieged by bots and drones the way you are on Twitter.

You have to be someone who people want to connect with. And if you stop being that kind of person you run the risk of getting kicked out.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#152

Post by vgchh »

After being connected through WhatsApp with a number of groups of family and friends, I recently decided to disconnect. I am on WhatsApp, but I no longer participate in group chats. I took this step after I felt that my time was no longer mine. I mostly played along for the FOMO. I still do 1:1 chats as and when needed.

After this change I feel liberated. I am able to think more independently, avoid group think and have more meaningful 1:1 conversations. For now I am planning to stick to this change.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#153

Post by imtringued »

alexgmcm wrote: post #10

30 years later and we have reinvented IRC, but worse as you can't use your own client, the protocol may not be public and it's harder to discover channels.

Yes exactly. In what type of bubble does the author live? "Group Chats" predate the web. So how can they make the internet fun "again" when they have never stopped making it fun?

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#154

Post by WilliamEdward »

ve55 wrote: post #117
dmitriid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea why you're being downvoted (my hunch is that HN is extremely biased towards IRC and XMPP). Discord is the lifeblood of a lot of gaming communities and a growing number of IT communities.

He's likely being downvoted because he's discussing that he's happy with an open protocol being deprecated in favor of a centralized service that is the opposite, logging all of your private messages, forcing you to use their own client, etc. Granted, they increased usability significantly by doing this, but it comes at a large cost for people that value freedom and privacy.

People have a right not to care about their own privacy. You've just described the entire target market for discord.

Why HN thinks this is a moral failing and downvotes accordingly is, in my opinion, their own ignorance, not anyone else's.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#155

Post by PascLeRasc »

imtringued wrote: post #153
alexgmcm wrote: post #10

30 years later and we have reinvented IRC, but worse as you can't use your own client, the protocol may not be public and it's harder to discover channels.

Yes exactly. In what type of bubble does the author live? "Group Chats" predate the web. So how can they make the internet fun "again" when they have never stopped making it fun?

It's just a more fun and personal way to "be online" than regular Instagram/Facebook where there's the expectation of producing content and performing for your followers that you're living a good life, mixed with FOMO from others' posts. That's what group chats are being compared to. Bringing up IRC is a red herring since most people haven't heard of it and couldn't join if they wanted to.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#156

Post by dmitriid »

Fnoord wrote: post #145
dmitriid wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (A very important exception.) IRCCloud just appears to be akin to a BNC. If Bob decides to use IRCCloud or a BNC that is his choice. The rest of the team or group can still use their preferred IRC client If just one team member uses IRCCliud for chat, all tgat sensitive info is now stored on IRCCloud’s servers. So, hiw exactly does “open FOSS protocol” help in this case?

Because as owners of the server and/or channel you are free to implement a protocol on top of it. On Discord and Slack you do not have such liberty. Heck, Slack killed IRC gateway.

Again Back to this statement:

> What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself

The moment you use IRCCloud all that sensitive data is on IRCCloud’s servers. How does “building a protocol in top of that (on top if what?)” help?

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#157

Post by PascLeRasc »

m-i-l wrote: post #108

The article doesn't cover this, but how do people discover these group chats? All the Discord servers I've joined I've essentially found by word-of-mouth, which doesn't seem very high tech. In the old days you'd find the interesting online forums by "surfing the web".

They're not discoverable and that's a feature. You get added by talking to someone else outside, like real-life friend groups. Yes, it's low-tech, and it's great because of that.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#158

Post by PascLeRasc »

DanTheManPR wrote: post #89
ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever been to a bar?

Serious question: how do you meet people at a bar? It has never been clear to me how that actually works.

Go to one with some kind of activity, like ping-pong, darts, or some kind of playoff sport on TV. It's pretty easy from there to start conversation, the key is to have some common topic to start discussion about.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#159

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

donatj wrote: post #116
ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever been to a bar?

Yeah, but I've never made a lasting friendship in one.

You’re not talking to enough people. Also, you’re too picky. I pick friends based on their kindness, sincerity, etc. Whether they are intelligent or not is pretty much irrelevant to me. I do all my intellectual work by myself.

Re: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again

#160

Post by Fnoord »

dmitriid wrote: post #156
Fnoord wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as owners of the server and/or channel you are free to implement a protocol on top of it. On Discord and Slack you do not have such liberty. Heck, Slack killed IRC gateway.

Again Back to this statement: > What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself The moment you use IRCCloud all that sensitive data is on IRCCloud’s servers. How does “building a protocol in top of that (on top if what?)” help?

The point is that those who own the channel and/or server can enforce E2EE. They own the data. Its also possible someone on an IRC client is running a compromised server. Then you're also back to square one.

Given we're talking in circles I'll withdraw from this discussion.

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