I don’t think people on this sub use it, but it’s great news for us. The worse it gets the likelier people move on.

  • guts@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Discord can do shit like this because they know many won’t ever try to use an alternative. You need more than just “open source” “privacy” or “FOSS” to convince people.

    • Gallardo994@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      This. Open source apps are generally awful at presenting themselves to a broader audience.

      Even for me, who’s technical enough, an app being FOSS is not enough to even bother checking out. Yes, I’ve said it. Sorry, tinfoils, but I do put features above else. And, want it or not, general public does the same: if the featureset is not clear enough at first glance, and an app doesn’t explicitly provide clarity on what it does and how it is better than competition, most people aren’t even checking it out.

      • atoro@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        It’s an unpopular opinion but I completely agree. I’ve tried Matrix, not only could I not get more than 2% of my community to try it, but it’s horribly unintuitive and limited for server owners. Shut it down after a few months.

        I have a rocket chat server going now, some similar issues, but at least it has more control than Matrix. Still only a fraction of my Discord and Telegram user base has joined, but it’s similar enough that people are at least willing to try.

        FOSS alone is not enough, the wider public doesn’t care, they just want something easy and convenient.

        • jg1i@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Curious, what didn’t you like about Matrix specifically? I’m in the process of evaluating it for my friends. With the Element client, so far it seems pretty dang similar? Space = server, room = channel, there are also access controls. Seems like there’s voice and video chats too.

          • atoro@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Speed was a big thing. Switching channels could take a few seconds to over a minute to load, on good hardware.

            The biggest issue, and a huge glaring oversight imo, is that users can create their own channels, encrypt them, and instance owners have no way to know what goes on in there. Some of the channel names alone were enough to make your skin crawl.

            Oh, and you want to ban somebody? Cool, just ban them individually from every channel, because there is no global instance-wide ban. Moderation is horrendous.

      • zarenki@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        if the featureset is not clear enough at first glance

        My experience as someone who has barely dabbled in Matrix, tried comparing clients, and knows a lot of people who stick to Discord: a lot of Discord users heavily use custom emotes, voice chat, and screen sharing. It’s not even easy to figure out which Matrix clients support each of those features without installing everything and trying it out. There’s a clients comparison on matrix.org that mentions Voip but not stickers or video.

        For stickers alone:

        • Element is widely considered the go-to Matrix client but uses a strange integration system for predefined sticker packs instead of the MSC2545 stickers that more closely resemble what users coming from Discord would want.
        • Cinny seems to have the best support for stickers/emotes but its site doesn’t mention them at all. It supports uploading and managing sticker packs at either a channel or user level, provides a nice picker UI to send any picture from those packs as either a large “sticker” or a small inline “emoji”, and allows using them for reactions.
        • FluffyChat mentions stickers on its site and has the second best sticker support, with all of those except reactions and a graphical sticker picker for inline emoji (need to type them as shortcode).
        • SchildiChat, Nheko, and NeoChat have some sort of limited support for custom stickers/emoji. NeoChat is the only one of those that advertises stickers on its main site. Nheko mentions them in a GitHub readme.

        Being able to freely use custom emotes without paying for a Discord Nitro subscription nor server boosts would be a great selling point but it’s not something most users would be able to figure out before signing up. The limited client support isn’t great; e.g. Fluffy is the only Android client that supports sending custom stickers but some people may dislike the chat bubbles style UI.

      • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        We need to fix people. This proprietary shit is dystopian.

        Make the apps pretty, sure, but long term; fix people.

      • iegod@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Ads are not enough reason to stop using it for the majority. You need to offer more than just ad-free. You need to offer the same or better adoption, features, and overall user experience. Discord has these all nailed.

        • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Discord has literally like one feature matrix doesn’t; stickers. And it kinda has those. Stop talking shit and try it out with some friends. This is so much more important than just chat, and the hour is getting late as fuck.

          The big thing is the network effect. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

  • asudox@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    revolt.chat is pretty good. It’s open source as well. The interface is exactly the same as Discord. And best of all, you don’t need nitro to have a gif background or profile picture. Markdown is also supported in the profile description so you can have very fancy descs.

    • Whirling_Ashandarei@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’ll keep an eye on this. I use discord exclusively for gaming purposes, and voice chat is pretty important for that bc I’m still on console mostly for the next year or so (building a pc finally, thanks to a new job). So if they can get that going, I could convince several people to switch once I’m also on PC. Till then discord for my PS5 is about the best I can hope for.

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Isn’t Mumble just a voice chat software? I don’t think that is the main use case for Discord for most people.

      • Alk@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, discord is for running a community not just chatting in voice.

      • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Idk, me and all my friends use discord for vc, plus screenshots and memes while we chat. You can do that in mumble. Not sure about broadcasting or anything (I started a server yesterday after the news broke), maybe there are extensions. Discord is just a means to an end for us.

    • endhits@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      And no one uses it. The last time I used mumble was over a decade ago and its use was short lived.

    • fluckx@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I just installed it after I ran into it on some other Lemmy comment. I was hoping to replace discord with it.

      • clicking on a voice room doesn’t actual join it. You still need to dial in
      • I can’t see who is currently in/using the voice room.
      • doesnt seem to remember me granting mic access
      • doesn’t seem to support screen sharing

      It just feels like it isn’t “there” just yet? Unless I’m missing something?

      If I showed it to friends of mine today and they had my experience I’m sure they’d go back to discord.

      Not hating on the devs though. The product itself seems to be coming along nicely.

  • RiQuY@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Time to move to Matrix then, and I’m not even joking. Ads are Aids.

    • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah god forbid anyone pay for the shit they use, just keep hopping around to suck the life out of every ‘free’ service there is. Nitro is right there.

      • RiQuY@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        If it wasn’t a privacy nightmare maybe I will consider paying, but data theft + ads? Naaaah.

        • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Ah right, so it’s fine if it’s a privacy nightmare but combined with ads, woah there. If you’re right, they already have your data. If you don’t use it, why even complain?

          • RiQuY@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Because I’m free to complain about things I don’t like.

            Many of my friends use Discord but I also use Matrix and I prefer that. This is a Signal/WhatsApp like situation.

            If Discord starts shoving them ads maybe I can bring some people over to a more secure platform easily.

            • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Yeah, sure, complain about it if you want to, it just doesn’t make sense if you’ve already given them the data. I like Signal for privacy but it doesn’t have any customization, no personalization, no personality, it’s nearly sterile. It does it’s job and that’s it. Great for people who want privacy for like… work but for just talking to friends Discord seems more enjoyable.

          • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I don’t think I’ve ever seen discord get a positive mention on this sub. I’ve never used it so I don’t really have a horse in this race.

            I don’t know what people use it for, but I’ve seen all the negative memes about open source software devs using it and that causing people to skip on the software though. Never seen it get any praise around here.

            • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I haven’t scraped the terms of service to see exactly what kind of data they collect but I’m not extremely worried about it. I don’t put sensitive information into it beyond my payment information for Nitro. I’m sure everyone here on Lemmy, a self-host and open source site/software, is against programs like Discord because they’re proprietary but I personally just enjoy it and don’t find it very limiting.

              • airikr@lemmy.ml
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                9 months ago
                • Your IP address will be logged as soon as you login.
                • They store everything you send in plain text on an encrypted storage unit.
                • They store if your microphone and/or camera is on or off + more of what settings you have made in your own device.
                • They force you to give them your phone number in order to identify you.

                Source: https://discord.com/privacy

                Discord is a privacy nightmare, but not as much as for an example Spotify. Spotify even logs how you hold your device and how fast you move it! Source: https://www.spotify.com/uk/legal/privacy-policy/

                • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago
                  • Everything everywhere I connect to has my IP, oh no.
                  • It’s not plaintext if it’s encrypted…
                  • So like cookies but for an application, not that intrusive imo.
                  • “You may be required to verify your account with a phone number” - I provided a phone number once and they’ve never, at any point, sent me anything or asked me to use it. You could easily use a burner phone.

                  Even thinking about a company like Google seems like more of a privacy nightmare. This is relatively tame compared to most everything else.

        • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Because of people… like you… who provide nothing to a free service besides costing bandwidth… leeches to a free internet… vampires to charity…

  • Moonrise2473@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Resisting? It was a clear strategy: use VC money to give away something for free then charge/monetize to give back those investors all the money, with interests

  • CapitanStrider@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 months ago

    Goddamn I wish it wasn’t so hard to convince friends that discord sucks. I’d rather just send SMS than use discord to communicate with my social circle.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      SMS? You mean the paid, vendor lock-in, MITMable traffic? Possibly one of the only options that is actually worse than Discord

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I wouldn’t say it’s great for me, because I have to use it for some people who just refuse to use an open source alternative.

  • afk_strats@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I wish I had enough time and knowledge to combine mumble and revolt… That would be the perfect discord replacement.

    Actually, I just want 1) gaming voice chat with 2) a shared music bot which 3) my non-tech friends would want to use

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    …Maybe I should try to make an account on one of those competitors… what’s it called? Revolt or something?