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Guess I'm Done with Discord

wowana.me

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Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#71

Post by elmerfud »

smitty1e wrote: post #50
elmerfud wrote: post #2

This is a typical response from service companies in the Internet age. They don't care about truth, or what actually happened, the algorithm says you're bad then you're bad. There's no human to appeal to, no human oversight of if their algorithm is right or wrong. They use another algorithm to check it, which tells them that you must be a bad actor. I've had my own issues with Lyft that are similar. Banned from using…

> but there's way to much consumer abuse for these Internet age services. a) Government programs are programs, written in the language English. So let's be careful what services we launch with the stroke of the Presidential pen. They could be a cure worse than the disease. b) Whither capitalism? A remedy to consider in parallel with government regulation would be some actual competition. How do we get the functionali…

There are very much examples of bad regulation but there are also good regulations to. While I'm a believer in capitalism, totally unregulated capitalism results in consumer abuse and stifles innovation.

Good consumer protections can actually benefit companies and the market in ways they don't expect until it happens. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act is an example of what I consider good consumer protections, and benefits the market as a whole.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#72

Post by smitty1e »

elmerfud wrote: post #71
smitty1e wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there's way to much consumer abuse for these Internet age services. a) Government programs are programs, written in the language English. So let's be careful what services we launch with the stroke of the Presidential pen. They could be a cure worse than the disease. b) Whither capitalism? A remedy to consider in parallel with government regulation would be some actual competition. How do we get the functionali…

There are very much examples of bad regulation but there are also good regulations to. While I'm a believer in capitalism, totally unregulated capitalism results in consumer abuse and stifles innovation. Good consumer protections can actually benefit companies and the market in ways they don't expect until it happens. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act is an example of what I consider good consumer protections, and benef…

Indeed. Even the sportiest economy needs referees to manage the game.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#73

Post by deogeo »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #34
fbcpck wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentiveness

Not at all, the author uses Tor to anonymize their location and probably system footprint. If you read the response the only "acceptable" phone number is a mobile phone. It de-anonymizes you because mobile providers hand out this sort of information for cash. The only reason for the phone number request, based on the requirements of what kind of phone numbers are acceptable (no VOIP, no landlines) is that they want t…

> It de-anonymizes you because mobile providers hand out this sort of information for cash.

No, the mere fact of the phone companies even having that information de-anonymizes you.

Suppose someone doesn't like what you have to say, sues you, and subpoenas the phone company for your information - that they don't sell it won't save you. Or you say something that upsets the phone company, its parent company, or one of its subsidiaries. It launches an internal investigation, and finds you [1]. All without selling or even sharing your information.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-microsoft-tracked-down-a-s...

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#74

Post by oceanghost »

Pfhreak wrote: post #7

> I refuse to provide phone verification as I believe it is Discord's fault for flagging my account... > I will be communicating with a couple communities with which I'm involved to explain that I am unable to use Discord Does this person not have a phone? 'Unable' seems like a stretch. If this person said, "I don't want to provide my phone number to Discord, so I'm going to stop using it" I'd understand. Their openi…

He says he's using tor to access Discord. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, the IP addresses of his exit nodes are probably flagged as frequent sources of abuse.

People underestimate how hostile the internet truly is. I run a small website for a friend-- I'd say 90% of our traffic is spam/exploit fishing. I have at times blocked whole countries because we didn't have any business in that region and the abuse would not stop.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#75

Post by TrinaryWorksToo »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
mostlysimilar wrote: post #3

I understand the frustration on the part of the user and I dislike that we're all being forced to give up our anonymity to use these platforms... but also the tone of both emails was quite antagonistic. They may have had slightly better luck if they'd been friendlier and not attempted to school the Discord staff on how their app should behave.

> but also the tone of both emails was quite antagonistic The customer is always right. > They may have had slightly better luck if they'd been friendlier and not attempted to school the Discord staff on how their app should behave. Or not. Besides, it should not matter, either they did something bad or they did not, the tone of the message may upset the recipient but when you ban someone just like that you can expec…

>The customer is always right.

That means the same as "there's no accounting for taste". If the customer prefers the neon pink lunchbox over the blue lunchbox, they are correct.

It does not mean they can do no wrong.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#76

Post by wowaname »

oceanghost wrote: post #74
Pfhreak wrote: post #7

> I refuse to provide phone verification as I believe it is Discord's fault for flagging my account... > I will be communicating with a couple communities with which I'm involved to explain that I am unable to use Discord Does this person not have a phone? 'Unable' seems like a stretch. If this person said, "I don't want to provide my phone number to Discord, so I'm going to stop using it" I'd understand. Their openi…

He says he's using tor to access Discord. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, the IP addresses of his exit nodes are probably flagged as frequent sources of abuse. People underestimate how hostile the internet truly is. I run a small website for a friend-- I'd say 90% of our traffic is spam/exploit fishing. I have at times blocked whole countries because we didn't have any business in that region and th…

If you couldn't gather from my name on the sidebar and the overall site theme, I'm not a guy :p

And yes, you're right about Tor IPs being flagged at greater frequency. That's fine, but I've had a clean account for over a year and have had no prior incidents. And a lot of abuse comes from IP addresses not related in any way to Tor, as well.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#77

Post by jacquesm »

TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #75
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but also the tone of both emails was quite antagonistic The customer is always right. > They may have had slightly better luck if they'd been friendlier and not attempted to school the Discord staff on how their app should behave. Or not. Besides, it should not matter, either they did something bad or they did not, the tone of the message may upset the recipient but when you ban someone just like that you can expec…

>The customer is always right. That means the same as "there's no accounting for taste". If the customer prefers the neon pink lunchbox over the blue lunchbox, they are correct. It does not mean they can do no wrong.

Sure, but customers being pissed off when their accounts are terminated is fairly predictable. The customer being always right is a long established business dogma, the reason is simple: the customer is the person that ultimately powers the business, without the customer there is no business so if you want to stay afloat you'd better make it so that the customer has their expectations met.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#78

Post by jacquesm »

wowaname wrote: post #55
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but also the tone of both emails was quite antagonistic The customer is always right. > They may have had slightly better luck if they'd been friendlier and not attempted to school the Discord staff on how their app should behave. Or not. Besides, it should not matter, either they did something bad or they did not, the tone of the message may upset the recipient but when you ban someone just like that you can expec…

For free services, I'm the product, not the customer. I understood this and used Discord regardless, because at the time it was the easiest way to talk to certain communities (mostly gaming related). If I was using Nitro, I'd have to agree with you, but I had a clear stance not to give a dime to a company I do not support.

> For free services, I'm the product, not the customer.

That's been beaten to death by now. Let's start with that I don't agree with it. If the service is free the price is $0, that does not suddenly transform the person who the product is being delivered to into the product itself. It merely changes the revenue stream into another one that is invisible to the customer. The company then has many options in order to get paid, none of which involve selling the customer. They might sell data about the customer (illegal in many places if that data has been collected for different purposes), or they might attempt to upsell the customer on a different service.

But in no way does the actual customer get sold.

The whole thing smacks of defeatism: we don't pay so therefore we have no rights as customers so don't whine. But that simply isn't true, users are not cattle to be sold at auction and companies should not treat them as such. And users should not tell each other that they only got what they deserved.

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#79

Post by pschastain »

wowaname wrote: post #42
Pfhreak wrote: post #7

> I refuse to provide phone verification as I believe it is Discord's fault for flagging my account... > I will be communicating with a couple communities with which I'm involved to explain that I am unable to use Discord Does this person not have a phone? 'Unable' seems like a stretch. If this person said, "I don't want to provide my phone number to Discord, so I'm going to stop using it" I'd understand. Their openi…

Just a note: I do not ask to have my blog entries submitted to this site, precisely because the comments I receive here are very assumptuous and negative. I have had prior interactions with Discord which influenced the tone of my E-mail. My blog post is simply presented as-is and I really do not care what others have to say about it, but I have no control over what is submitted here. I just want people to keep this i…

Personally found the post interesting. I don't use Discord but I also refuse to give my number out for verification purposes - as you noted there are other ways to verify a users identity.

Hopefully you don't get too much grief for being a female on the internet with an opinion :-/

Re: Guess I'm Done with Discord

#80

Post by wowaname »

pschastain wrote: post #79
wowaname wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note: I do not ask to have my blog entries submitted to this site, precisely because the comments I receive here are very assumptuous and negative. I have had prior interactions with Discord which influenced the tone of my E-mail. My blog post is simply presented as-is and I really do not care what others have to say about it, but I have no control over what is submitted here. I just want people to keep this i…

Personally found the post interesting. I don't use Discord but I also refuse to give my number out for verification purposes - as you noted there are other ways to verify a users identity. Hopefully you don't get too much grief for being a female on the internet with an opinion :-/

I don't capitalise on my sex/gender; I just prefer the use of neutral language when talking about anyone of unknown gender. In any case; I signed up for this when deciding to put my ideas online, and it has given me a chance to connect with a lot of nice people, despite also having to take the negative audiences along with it. I definitely am surprised that my blog attracts as much positive attention as it does; I never really wrote with the assumption that I'd have far reach. But, it's nice that others out there do care about some of the things I do.

Currently Discord doesn't require a number if you use your home IP to connect, but that could change at a moment's notice with their opaque methods of operation. I've used Tor with Discord for months without any issue until recently. So, it's probably better not to start using it now than to take that risk and be upset when they do find a reason to demand your personal information.

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