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Why Microsoft Wants Discord

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Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#51

Post by flurdy »

ChrisRR wrote: post #24
gautamcgoel wrote: post #5

Is seems to me the top five software companies are on a never-ending quest to buy up every other promising software company. GitHub, Twitch, Mojang, Instagram, WhatsApp... I'd love to see a few smaller software companies refuse to get bought up and instead cultivate an independent mindset. Otherwise, we end up with a world completely dominated by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.

It's unlikely. I suspect many people start businesses with the intention of doing what they love and making a decent living out of it. Then the bigger the company gets, the further removed you are from your original dream and when someone waves a big pile of money in your face, it's a very tempting offer

This is often a very good reason why many sucessfull startups sell.

Also many of the founders have an "entrepreneurial spirit", which really means to me they prefer to start things, make it a success (or not) and then move on, over and over again. They are not often a "lifer" that hang on at the same company till they retire. Some are, many not.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#52

Post by goalieca »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #25
pityJuke wrote: post #3

I wonder whether Microsoft would try and tie Discord accounts to Microsoft accounts. I think it'd be a bad call, as unlike Mojang (to be fair, it took years for Microsoft to actually migrate them), Discord does have a proper accounts infrastructure built up, one which is used as an authentication service of its own. Easier integration and auto signup with MSFT accounts, sure, but I think it would be a mistake to do a…

That would be a nightmare. It currently takes anywhere between 2 and 5 redirects to log into one of my MSFT accounts.

Personally I find microsoft Authenticator pretty nice. Yes, there’s more requests but it’s easier to tap a button on my watch than to drag open some other Authenticator and type in a pin.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#53

Post by Chris2048 »

endisneigh wrote: post #6

Sometimes I wonder if the world would be better or worse if there was a max size for companies. It’s also interesting how many chat apps are acquired and exist. Just how large is that market?

These companies are as much funds as they are companies, should there be a limit on capital pooling?

TBH, I think it might be good to put limits on company types i.e. what type of business a company can do at a certain scale; and very different rules for large vs small companies in general (and maybe private/low-majority-shareholder-count versus public corps) - that way a tech company can just go into another industry and dominate on the basis of better funding alone.

I'd also really like to see product based shares/corp-ownership; where ip, copyright etc for a product are held only by a co-op that issues shares/agreements with associated partners companies. That way instead of having a corp first, with its product to support it; you could have a product first, with a company to support it.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#54

Post by 908B64B197 »

causalmodels wrote: post #31
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd love to see a few smaller software companies refuse to get bought up and instead cultivate an independent mindset. Didn't Oakley sunglasses try something similar when Luxottica first tried to buy them and then Luxottica managed to ruin them and ended up buying them much cheaper? And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups?

Example #1: Teams is currently eating Slack.

I still recall their 2016 full page add in the New York Times

"We realized a few years ago that the value of switching to Slack was so obvious and the advantages so overwhelming that every business would be using Slack, or “something just like it,” within the decade."[0]

They were right about the "something just like it" part.[1]

[0] https://slack.com/blog/news/dear-microsoft#.r90mkakwl

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195092/slack-new-user-r...

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#55

Post by sho_hn »

908B64B197 wrote: post #44
sho_hn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups? Not just startups. They tried to acquire Nokia's handset business and initially failed. Stephen Elop (ex-MS) was installed as new CEO via investor pressure, Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones and changed direction to Windows Mobile and then it was acquired after all. And failed. Elop has, of course, denied having been a trojan…

> Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones "Promising" is an interesting choice of words here.

The Nokia N9 was very well-received. If you need lots of glowing citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N9#Reception

If anything, "promising" may be the wrong choice of words because it was arguably better and more mature than the equivalent debut iOS and webOS devices at launch. Of course that's cheating a bit, as the tech stack had some history behind it by that point. Still, for a line-incepting product it was very impressive execution, especially for a company that was still so hung up on a legacy product line at the same time (Symbian).

Personally, I used one as well and I don't find it very hard to imagine a version of the world where it could still be my preferred OS/ecosystem right now. It was truly a strange situation, and Nokia of the day one strange animal of a dissonant company. I don't know if Nokia would have made it without the MS interference -- but I think it didn't help.

This is a nice little nostalgia anecdote too that gets discussed on HN occasionally: http://nition.momentstudio.co.nz/2014/08/the-nokia-n9-alarm-...

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#56

Post by dillondoyle »

p-sharma wrote: post #22

I don't get it. What's the benefit of buying a community? It's not like you can really control what the community does or thinks, you may can control which ads they see but how else do you make money with this community? > so Microsoft migrating Discord over to Azure would be seen as a big win for its cloud ambitions. What should this prove? That Azure can run a big service like Discord? I don't think Microsoft has t…

I might guess also better integration with their games products, identity integration, expanding on the growing in game/streaming ads market e.g. Unity.

App install ads on consoles or future mobile platforms.

Plus just more lucrative ads on Discord expanding (or including if they don't have) in stream video. MSFT already has a crappy ad network but they have a lot of addressable potential.

Maybe they have a larger streaming vision and this is a way to build streaming content, or console CTV media channels paying and assisting premium creators like YouTube. A lot of these streams end up on youtube already.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#57

Post by potatoman22 »

hpoe wrote: post #18
endisneigh wrote: post #6

Sometimes I wonder if the world would be better or worse if there was a max size for companies. It’s also interesting how many chat apps are acquired and exist. Just how large is that market?

From what I've seen the big companies just stink at chat period, so they go in buy a chat company, ruin the product and someone else moves into the space and starts taking market share again. Examples include AIM Skype Slack and now Discord

Or the chat product space is just constantly evolving, so older platforms inevitably get left behind after radically new ones pop up.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#58

Post by aaronax »

endisneigh wrote: post #6

Sometimes I wonder if the world would be better or worse if there was a max size for companies. It’s also interesting how many chat apps are acquired and exist. Just how large is that market?

It would be interesting to have limits on size. Something like a max of 1 million users.

Optimistically, it would result in all applications being federated and there being a multitude of hosting platforms to choose from.

Or Microsoft would sell Teams server software to hosting companies with strict requirements like not allowing connections to competing products. Or just slightly alter the existing O365 reseller model..."We don't have 100 million users, we have 100 users (resellers) who each have sold 1 million licenses."

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#59

Post by pja »

bluecalm wrote: post #48

All the talk is about community, mainly related to gaming. I think there is more to Discord: it's a great platform for programming projects. There are quite a few there already and with a few more developer friendly features it may just snowball. It's a great addition to GitHub for discussing functionality, posting tests, ideas, protect related news or even loose chat. You can combine developers, users, fans having a…

Yes, this is absolutely true.

In addition to the above, two virtual conferences I’ve attended in the last year have used Discord as their interface for attendees and speakers & organisers. It’s versatile, has a decent permissions structure & supports audio/video sharing. (Although both conferences chose to use Zoom for the actual talks.)

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#60

Post by gh-throw »

goalieca wrote: post #43
Spivak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. It's not enough to have a better product when Teams comes "free" for a lot of orgs.

I don’t know at which point slack is better. We use both and I find teams annoying and weird but I prefer it because it is less distracting than slack. In some ways slack feels designed to keep my attention and stay engaged.

I haven't used Teams in almost two years, but when I did I never felt like I was sure "where" I was, or where anything else was. I'd find myself "somewhere" not have no confidence I'd ever be able to get back. I hated using it. Anything I cared about I'd copy out, or keep notes, including stuff that I'd absolutely leave to Slack to keep for me (so, middling-important stuff).

Lots of enterprise UI is like that for me, actually, including most PM software more complex than GH issues + boards. I find them extremely uncomfortable to use because I'm never confident I'm doing the right thing, or that what I'm doing is safe to do, or whether I'll be able to find the things I need again.

Slack is heading that way with some of their changes (the way drafts and threads are handled is juuuuust on the edge of putting it in that territory) but I still never feel "lost" for long, on there.

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