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Discord Alternatives, Ranked

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Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#191

Post by bambax »

amanzi wrote: post #152
literalAardvark wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you're not in the target market. And I guess not interested in the space. Discord's key value proposition is that it's a trusted zero friction voice chat with a lot of features. The workflow that made it huge: organizer creates a server for a game, creates a short link for a voice channel. The organizer then goes to play their game, shares the short link with their group. The members click the link, wr…

I agree with the previous commenter - I hate Discord for all the same reasons. But you said: "That's because you're not in the target market. And I guess not interested in the space." and this is the bit that frustrates me... I must be the target market because several services I use try to get you to use Discord for support, and some will only provide support via Discord.

Yes! If Discord's appeal is that it's a tool/space to just have fun together in the moment, then fine! but that's exactly the opposite of a support system.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#192

Post by lvass »

andrepd wrote: post #168
kenniskrag wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In europe you need identification to buy a sim or esim. https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/9ziqfi/european_cou...

Didn't know that the UK, the Netherlands, or Portugal aren't part of Europe... Also, you can buy phone numbers with monero for 0.08$ https://smspool.net .

And what happens when the next guy buys that same number and registers on Signal?

Phone numbers are recurring costs. And to keep a truly private one you must keep paying without ever disclosing personal info and that is really hard. Signal is a privacy nightmare for long term use.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#194

Post by numpad0 »

VoidWhisperer wrote: post #98
numpad0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't anybody just add a button to host a fully P2P WebRTC call? Like everyone did back when Slack didn't have anything, but in one click?

In the case of voice chat in servers used for gaming, my experience has been that the persistent channels for voice are actually kind of important, it removes any friction from dropping in and out of voice chat, and allows others to easily see 'hey, there is someone in this voice channel, maybe i should join'

But that can be easily faked in client UI. Something like, clicking an empty channel internally hosts a call, hosting/joining the call causes the client to post a hidden "@user is in #call" message, etc.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#195

Post by xg15 »

If the age verification/mandatory ID is the result of new laws, how exactly would switching to an alternative server help? Wouldn't they be forced to implement the same measures as well sooner or later?

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#196

Post by jeltz »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #100
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are also currently working on a privacy-focused alternative called Kloak, which is in its very early alpha stage. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on areas for improvement and any expectations you may have for the platform. Doesn't Matrix essentially satisfy all of them? Although the bulletinboard/newsgroup feature is something that I don't know but I feel as if that can be on matrix as well. Yes, I kno…

Discord is real time chat, I thought matrix was not? And discord comes for gaming, voice chat is a key feature

Matrix is real time chat and it also supports voice chat, but I have not used it so I do not know if voice is good enough yet.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#197

Post by pmdr »

outime wrote: post #135
pmdr wrote: post #96

Email + IRC (there are daemons that support chat history). Bouncers exist. Logging. This should be standard for OSS projects, not some private, unsearchable, data-mining platform. This is what happens when we reach for convenience over openness.

As someone who spent countless hours on IRC when I was younger and enjoyed 99% of it to the fullest... I'd kindly suggest refraining from pushing IRC any further. It has had its run, and while I know it still exists, it's nowhere near what it once was and it's not coming back. Times have changed and people have different expectations. Nobody (except very few) is going to use multiple services and set up a bouncer jus…

I'm all for alternatives as long they're based on open protocols and truly open apps -- not some where a corporate entity gets to dictate how many users one may have or how many lines you get to store. It should also be fairly easy to connect to and not every open-source project needs E2E encryption. Matrix is probably okay, but I found it (and the apps) fairly cumbersome.

IRC obviously has its limitations, but it shines as an example of simplicity and maintainability with no corporate strings attached.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#198

Post by SebastianKra »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #76
shreyaspapi wrote: post #21

Most Discord alternatives fail not on tech, but on polish. Signal → private but bad for communities Matrix → flexible but rough UX XMPP → powerful but fragmented Discord → centralized but frictionless Users pick frictionless every time. We probably don’t need new apps or protocols we need a client that works well.

> Matrix → flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app &…

> Imagine a Matrix client […] e2ee […]

The biggest immediate win that we can achieve for our users is to remove all (!) technical jargon from our landing pages and product ui.

This is a problem throughout all FOSS. For example in KDE:

> Do x when Plasma starts.

Wtf do I care what Plasma is. Oh, you mean my computer? Yeah makes sense.

Raycast: You can search files, have a calculator, a translator…

KRunner: You can run terminal commands and convert characters to hexadecimal.

It is so obvious that these products are designed by developers for developers. From my experience, this friction is everything. You cannot expect people to intuitively figure it out.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#199

Post by trinix912 »

direwolf20 wrote: post #138
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matrix → flexible but rough UX Matrix's UI/UX is actually really flexible with multiple clients. You aren't struck with Element, you can even use TUI clients or any clients. For the web, the one which I really love is cinny. Cinny is really awesome, its UI/UX is better than discord imo. I recommend people to check out the matrix ecosystem of clients to see what they like, because I also liked the fractal gnu app &…

More friction!

Is it really though? The average user doesn't need to know about all other clients, how it all works, etc. They just "open this website, register, and you're in!"

It's not like the registration process necessarily involves typing in the server IP and port number, picking and setting up an advanced TUI client or something else.

Re: Discord Alternatives, Ranked

#200

Post by Krizzu »

reactordev wrote: post #132
neobrain wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal has profiles nowadays that can be used to connect with people without sharing phone numbers. The latter are only used for signup and discarded immediately after.

I doubt they are discarded when push notifications exist

push notifications are not related to phone number, but rather to a randomly generated token in app.
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