Perhaps open source projects should stop using it as a replacement for forums
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I stepped away from Discord months ago and I must admit, I haven't found a good replacement yet. And if it is decent, no one else I know will jump on it.
Its frustrating.
(I know someone may feel compelled to offer a solution by pointing me towards a Discord-like. I assure you, I've already tried or looked into it.)
It’s not quite ready yet but Fluxer is trying to be a drop in replacement for discord with self hosted options. I’m just waiting for it to be a bit more ready and stable before I jump ship, but as soon as they glance my way with age verification I’ll probably jump early
Been using Fluxer since March. Is there something specific you need before you consider it ready?
I would like the iOS app to be out of test flight primarily
Not to press the issue too much here, but is there a specific reason why? I don't have an iPhone so I can't comment on that version, but the android app is perfectly usable.
Probably because they use an iPhone. You can’t use android apps on iPhones. Just like you can’t use iOS apps on android.
I didn't mean to imply otherwise. My point was that the android app is likewise in the play store beta program, but is very usable. But, as I said, I'm unfamiliar with iphone so if the test program means you can't use it, I see.
On iOS being in beta via TestFlight means only 10,000 people can test the app at a time. After that limit is hit no one can sign up to “test” the app unless someone drops out.
“I am legit probably going to close my servers and delete my account after all this,”
Oh by gods just fucking do it! All year I've had friends say shit like this, but then it turns out me and one friend of mine were the only ones with the balls to do it.
We set up a Matrix server for everyone, but then the excuses come rolling in, and they're still going "I will close down my Discord account...! If it gets any worse..."
Edit: anyway, they're not my friends anymore. I had hoped they were better people. They certainly talk like better people.
It's hard to leave when a huge chunk of your interpersonal connections are tangled in its web. It's the same reason Facebook and Twitter still exist.
That's part of the reason why these platforms have such high valuations per capita, opposed to non- or less-social apps. There's a lot of momentum.
I host a Matrix server myself and even I still use Discord more because that's where people are. Matrix has its own issues and, frankly, it's a shitshow; discord offers a lot of features with better UX and it has a lot of people.
The only reason Skype and team speak died* was because Discord provided a better value. Now it has the momentum, and the only way it will die is if something else offers even more value. Enshitification helps shift, but the momentum fights against it; momentum is like a small multiplier on top of its feature value.
Even if the app enshitifies, even if their base value drops; the product is still larger because of the userbase. So it becomes a chicken and egg problem. Until an inflection point is hit, their sheer mass buys them room to enshittify.
People who can walk away early are the exception, not the rule. It's why people still use Reddit more than Lemmy. I may get some hate for this, but I don't think the people on Lemmy are inherently "better." There are selection biases, and I'm sure that holds true by some metrics, but not in totality.
"If everyone accelerated at the same time, there wouldn't be a traffic jam" is true, but that's not how the world or its people work; you just need to come to terms with that before you can do anything about it.
Edit: speech to text typos. Probably missed some.
You shouldn't get hate for it. Most people aren't that deep into the weeds of their given apps to worry about this stuff, and honestly, that's probably healthy 😅
The issue is many groups only have a presence on Discord, like community groups. I'm part of a couple local communities, and there's no way you're going to get hundreds of people to migrate over without something that affects functionality in a major way finally prompting people to make the switch.
Maybe, but I think it really boils down to convenience and ease of use. People will stick around until the pain of moving to a new platform is less than the pain of staying there.
Literally this whenever I mention what Discord has been caught with.
My friend reached out to some people I used to know on Discord now that it's AI and age verification is finally fully active, and the response he got was "I know, but, I didn't notice any change".
I think you're preaching to the choir though. Most people on Lemmy aren't here because its got the best memes OE anything. It just sucks when it seems like almost everyone in your life shrugs at doing the right thing because it is inconvenient.
Checks out.
You ask someone to see or find some cool alternative thing you've been using, they'll insist it's either one more app or come up with excuses to stay with the corporate thing. It's always the corporate thing.
Presumably they don't have to open all those apps every time they want to chat to their friends, i.e. every day. Presumably they think friendship with you is a two-way street and that you'll hear their needs and reach a compromise in a way that is impossible with a big corporation like an airline.
But more than any of that, people reference their behaviour to what everyone else is doing. You're the outlier because you're asking for something that none of their other friends ask for.
This comic is referring to holding positions in political context where there is an active genocide being perpetrated by the US on 2 fronts both in Gaza and at home via ICE detention centers. Comparing it to people who are struggling to find a rellacement for a chat app because of age verification is either a gross misue of your ability to comprehend analogy, or you really see consumption on par with mass violence and terrorism.
Maybe you need to sit this out for a bit.
Using Discord is giving your data to AI for its training and to the American government, which is enacting all these terrible things. Ergo, staying on Discord because going onto Matrix is mildly inconvenient is taking a privileged and complacent political stance.
Even if America wasn't doing these things and Discord wasn't feeding your data to them, using Discord with their they AI scanning all your messages and activities is still being tolerant towards authoritarian surveillance.
If you think this is limited to Discord then I have some real bad news man, our conversation right now is getting scraped, legally or otherwise. See my other reply.
Never said it was limited to Discord. But it's the easiest thing to change. Getting rid of Discord and replacing it with something someone you've trusted for a long time has set up would be like "Baby's first activism".
Nobody is leaving Discord because they're not feeling the consequences of staying. Those consequences are elsewhere, and a flaw in humanity that keeps consistently disappointing me is if the consequences are not literally happening in front of their eyes, or effecting their own lives, it's somehow just not real enough. And because it's not real enough being mildly inconvenienced by missing one or two mostly inconsequential comforts seems like the bigger problem.
Like how people weren't taking COVID-19 seriously after it didn't end civilisation over night.
Or like how people aren't really taking climate change seriously.
A wonderful example of this was when Australia was on fire, and the Americans were calling them crybabies. But then later that year America was on fire and suddenly forest fires were just the worst!
Jesus christ then yeah you really aren't interested in any of the things you claim. You realize there is NO ethical consumption under capitalism right? That means there is NO right choice. You do what you can with ehat you have available. If you want to only consume the things that produce exactly zero or less net harm in society you're gonna have to start drinking your own filtered piss. Now because I understand analogy I can say you are basically already doing that.
And leaning on upvotes are a great way to reveal that you were polling from the get go and only assuming what you said might hit. What if you got downvoted because you were in a different community that was getting a different point across? I now just don't think you actually have a point you're just agitating because it's the popular move
Hey first and foremost I think you're a reasonable person and you took a step back in a lot of those points to prove it and I appreciate it.
I want to take a look at the whole throughline here though, someone made a claim that the problem you're going to run into is large communities that either don't have the means or the organization to relocate platforms. You posted the comic in response and then immediately came out swinging about how complicit consumption enables terrorism. Does this not seem entirely inappropriate to you? Aunt Tracey's knitting group got together and had all of their niece's show them how to use Discord, no one can explain FOSS hosting to them, now Al-Qaeda wins. If I'm being dramatic yes, but only as much as you are in response here.
I stopped paying for Nitro the first time this news came out. I haven't reupped it. Discord is a miserable experience for me now and is an ugly app without the Nitro options. Doesn't chanve the fact that the few communities I do belong to are still central to and maintained within the Discord environment. If they move I'll move but some left infigthing jerk off session isn't going to be what changes their mind.
My real point is I find anything that leads to further alienation is going to be the wrong choice, and that's including, for lack of a better term, libjacketing people who don't have a dog in the race one way or another. We're all looking for a way out man.
Taking all of that at face value is absolutely great, good on ya. I don't have the skills or the spoons to pretend like I'm going to be upheaving any industry so I just can't be bothered. I'm a workaday schmuck who had no preparation for the world we're in and am just trying to figure it out piece by piece.
Although I do feel like at the very least I can advocate for better strategy and arguing with people on the internet is something that at least makes me feel like I can at least maybe change a mind or two for what I think is for the better. I acknowledge though that there's plenty of judgement to levy at that.
I have a parallel comment thread here that addresses this specifically but I do think that people are putting absurd weights on the moral outcomea of everyday consumerism. I am anti-consummerist, if I can help it I just don't buy anything. The people that accuse me of being a priveledged funko pop hoarder always confuse me because that's such a strange charge to levy but that seems to be the baseline, like people can't help buy but the latest marvel Funkpop. If that's rrue I'm already way way out of touch with the average, but there's a hotdog stand I like I have no idea what the dude who owns it voted for and it would be nice to replicate that sort of ideal.
Boycotts work when they're organized. BDS is a movement with a strong boycott focus. I follow along with that as much as I can and some of it's easy, like I've never owned an XBOX and MS is a monster to the gaming scene I don't support. Sodasteams are stupid, Disney+ is not interesting to me, easy. I'm struggling to fully de-Google myself but we're, like, a personal tragedy away from my becoming a feral techno goblin and just abstaining from everything due to discreet madness. None of these decisions are moral, I support the movement and I don't like 98% of the stuff on the list, easy, just takes the extra step of not choosing it when I have to make a choice, or just delaying whatever it is (if it isn't an emergency) indefinitely.
I do think that the constant call for boycotts for every headline is a mistake and an ongoing tragedy. It is without exception that every single company and every single product has some kind of dark presence in its history. Can't fucking buy a box of Cereal without wondering if a priest developed it to keep me from jerking off. The entire world is a clusterfuck of dubious human decisions. Casting aspersions and drawing fucking lines in the sand for every single trespass is an excercise in social atomization and I have come to my personal conclusion that you let them win the more we seperate, so no, I don't give a shit if a CEO shot the last gazelle in Uganda so now anyone who bought shoes with laces in the last 10 years has the moral respinsibility to divulge their stance on the issue and condemn them daily or face ostricization because they haven't bought shoes with velcro instead.
You can make your own decisions but no, I don't think failure to immediately seek alternatives in the time of peak enshittification or not being the personal savior of telecommunications is a moral failing. I am not rushing anybody to it and if they ask for my age verification I'm going to lie like a decent citizen should and encourage others to do the same. I've lost friends for less and it's actually just the stupidest thing in the world.
Sorry that was way more writing than I expected.
Scale and impact are pretty damn relevant though. There's a lot of things I'd boycott due to active genocides that I wouldn't boycott because of quibbles over data protection and AI. When you draw an analogy between things, it only works if they're of similar magnitudes, otherwise what makes one scenario in the analogy work doesn't apply to the other one, and the analogy collapses.
Not giving a shit is frequently the best option for the individual, and the individual is the only one that matters.
And I fucking hate those people. All of them will say "but I won't move until other people move", and so nobody will move.
Complacency is not a good excuse.
Just a random reminder that judging people SOLELY on their consumption practices under capitalism is actually an asshole move. Not everyoneone has the time, patience, or means to make all of the same choices you do, and it's not their fault that availabilty is commanded by monopolies and consolidated power structures.
You can keep hating if you want but those people will not miss you and you will find that your options are rapidly shrinking at a time when you're going to need people most.
I judge people on consumption practices that are easy to change. Not me nor anyone can do anything about all the affordable things we need to survive coming from sweatshops or destroying the environment.
But Discord doesn't come even close to approaching any such thing, and it costs literally nothing to collectively dump it. Especially if some technical friends have already done all the technical work for you.
Fuck anyone who tries to make that comparison.
You can keep hating if you want but those people will not miss you...
I won't miss them either. Only what I thought they stood for.
I mean how are you interfacing here on Lemmy? You got an iPhone or are you using technology that wasn't built by one of the 5 companies trying to actibely destroy the world?
I don't think yoy need to be putting this much moral burden on Discord that it makes you actively shun people who are otherwise probably not monsters. When I say SOLELY I do mean are you making any other calculation here like whether they've been a good friend to you or are someone you might be able to cpnvince down the road? People who still go to Starbucks disgust me but if I have a friend who works for Non-Profit orgs or volunteers time and just doesn't have the desire to focus on where they're picking up their 2 dollar drip coffee I might sneer at them when they do it but hate doesn't enter into it.
Since I already answered most of this in my previous comment, I'll just copy pasta it:
I judge people on consumption practices that are easy to change. Not me nor anyone can do anything about all the affordable things we need to survive coming from sweatshops or destroying the environment. But Discord doesn't come even close to approaching any such thing, and it costs literally nothing to collectively dump it. Especially if some technical friends have already done all the technical work _for you._ Fuck anyone who tries to make that comparison.
As for the new thing:
I don't think yoy need to be putting this much moral burden on Discord that it makes you actively shun people who are otherwise probably not monsters.
I can, I should, and I will. So you can go fuck yourself.
Yeah starting to get the sense that people didn't follow you to Matrix vecause you've gone out of your way to make yourself as insufferably sanctimonious as possible. Can't blame them.
It sounds like being you is deeply unenviable. Good luck! Being a full on cunt will never convince anyone to be on your side!
Yes, believe whatever is most comfortable for you to believe, because gods forbid a modicum of principle is demanded.
Being a full on cunt...
Only my bestest behaviour towards those most deserving.
Alright if you wanna keep it going.
I would look up what modicum means, my guy.
Who were these friends? Were they people you knew in real life? Were they peolle you knew for years, hell even maybe a handful of months? Were they people you spent time with, had conversations with? Did you share ideas or passions? Who were they?
I'm asking because I genuinely want to know what made them 'deserve' this. And no, I don't presume you're talking to me because you don't even know who I am and I have been nothing but polite to you up to this point. You don't know what I deserve, jnless I'm right about the sanctimonious thing and God only knows how deeply helpless you are if it's that bad.
Who were they, and what made keeping Discord such a damning act? I just don't believe that can be it. You can't seriously leverage the entire system of morals and countenance on a group of people by one point of information here, in all of my deepest sincerity, you're gonna drive yourself insane, man.
Who were these friends? Were they people you knew in real life? Were they peolle you knew for years, hell even maybe a handful of months? Were they people you spent time with, had conversations with? Did you share ideas or passions? Who were they?
Who were they, and what made keeping Discord such a damning act?
I've known some of the for 10 years. I don't think there's a single one who I've known for less than a year. I know their supposed political views and what they say they support, and the things we supposedly agreed on.
But like everyone they just like to talk.
And I've been seeing the same complacent crap about Discord on Mastodon, Bluesky, and Lemmy, and I'm going to have zero tolerance for people who take what is literally techno fascism belly up.
And no, I don't presume you're talking to me because you don't even know who I am and I have been nothing but polite to you up to this point.
Politeness doesn't make your bullshit palatable. And why would I even need to know more about you when you're defending the use of Discord?
If you ever find yourself asking "how could people let XYZ happen" about some past tyrrany, look in the mirror.
Hoo boy.
Yeah I genuinely thought there was a conversation here but I think the paranoia is a little too real. I genuinly mean this but get help.
There is ignorance, then there is willful ignorance. I'll repeat myself; get fucked.
There's an entire world of 8 billion people out there.
There's people making art that is going to be enjoyed for decades. People today will be trying to describe what it was like when it was new to teenagers in 2053.
There's people who will not eat tomorrow because they haven't been able to find a job yet. Maybe they'll get lucky and their sister will be in town and will take them out for lunch.
There's a three year old finding out for the first time how to drag a mouse and draw a line on the screen. In 26 years they're going to start their first animation job and be happier than tbey've ever been.
And right now you think a chat app is going to e d humanity and have Roko's Basilisk'd yourself out of friendships that have lasted a decade.
Get. Fucking. Help.
Siiiiggghhhhhhh...
I judge people on consumption practices that are easy to change. Not me nor anyone can do anything about all the affordable things we need to survive coming from sweatshops or destroying the environment. But Discord doesn't come even close to approaching any such thing, and it costs literally nothing to collectively dump it. Especially if some technical friends have already done all the technical work for you.
You're using some sort of fallacy I forgot the name of. The one where you argue about changing something problematic because other problems also still exist.
Is it "whataboutism"?
Sorry I feel the need to point out that beautiful things are happening around the world and I tried to describe people living their lives and being happy and you referred to them as 'problems'
Therapist. Now.
No because you are literally dying on this hill and the tunnel vision you've developed refuses to let you see past this insane narrative you've absolutely coccooned yourself in that yours is the only rigteous path and everyone else is an enemy.
Again, you are trying to justify to me that what you're saying is true and brother, maybe it is, but I've lost friends to this selfsame indignant insanity because the hole the dug themselves left them alone and ashamed. This route will kill you if you don't snap out of it now.
Just a random reminder that your excuse making is laughable, especially with your inherently pretentious and entitled phrasing.
You either have principles you uphold or you don't, and then you're usually a hypocrite, or at least, openly self-centered. Often both.
Us non hypocrites won't miss not knowing another insecure panicked self centered hypocrite, just as you evidently won't miss knowing people who actually have standards they judge themselves and others by equally.
Its a very bad plan to rely on people with no principles, so your threat of exclusion from the group of people who despise being inconvenienced and can't follow through on doing inconvenient things, is... laughable.
What does 'availability is commanded by monopolies...' even mean?
What, you don't have the ... mental capacity, brain ability to cancel or delete or stop using one piece of software and instead use another? Yet here you are writing your apologia on a uh, non socially standard message board, so obviously that isn't true.
Yeah I'm gonna be the asshole and tell you if you can't make responsible decisions for yourself, I don't care about you and your inability to stop doing what is ultimately self destructive behavior.
Jesus christ you too, get a therapist. You sound like the psychotic techno-doomerist version of the 'in this moment, I am euphoric' guy.
Lotta words for trying to say I'm stupid, if you were smart you could have done it in at least two less yammering paragraphs.
Blocking you anyway because I don't even want to know what you think continuing this convo looks like.
Well I guess you won't see it, but the block is mutual, you thin skinned, self righteous hypocrite.
If anyone else reads this, I didn't and wasn't saying they are stupid. You can be a smart self centered prick or hypocrite. Arguably, casting yourself as a powerless victim instead of ultimately responsible for yourself in a situation where you do actually have the power to make a meaningful choice, arguably, that is a rather intelligent, indirect tactic.
What I was saying was stupid was the reasoning they presented in support of their position.
As well as the notion that more or less, capitalism stole their attention span and/or executive function.
Even if that's true, that's an explanation for how an injury occured, not a plan for recovering from said injury.
Funny they call me a doomer as they write hysterical explanations for accepting their apparently unavoidable fate.
Or maybe you're just "normal", or to put it differently; exactly the kind of person why problems are allowed to continue to exist.
Yeah making all normal people your enemy isn't healthy. Still recommending a therapist.
Being complacent like you isn't healthy.
And Matrix isn't the only option out there
and good ole IRC
Fluxer is still behind on Matrix with clients like Sable.
Sable used to be behind on Fluxer, but Sable made a lot of updates over the months, and Fluxer is more or less currently focusing entirely on the mobile app, while missing some rather important key features, like Federation and E2EE for private chats.
Fluxer is, however, far more easy to set up a self hosted server with. You cna get it done within an hour.
Sable is POG
More fragmentation isn't really a selling point of alternatives to a market player with a big critical mass and network effects.
Good list, didn't know about armada yet. Will add one more: https://www.gamevox.com/
I do agree, but the thing is vendor lock-in is real. Indoctrination by the powerful capitalists does wonders for masses to never leave the app at all. It really takes a changed mindset to switch to alternatives or to quit it entirely.
Many people are exhausted, lazy, do not actually have any real principles or discipline, and are unwilling to endure inconvenience.
Unreliable entitled self-centered hypocrites.
I am glad you realized your former friends were lacking in character. It sucks to lose friends, but in the long run, bad people will just drag you down to their own level of miserable mediocrity.
Me in 2002: "Wow this IRC thing is pretty sweet, I bet people in 2026 will still be using it and it will be even better."
People in 2026: "I just cannot live without six different closed source, bloated, expensive, corporate versions of IRC which are somehow worse in every imaginable way than IRC was in 2002."
I've been wondering if IRC still exists. I used to use it way back in the day, is it still. Bathing I can get back into?
Still use it daily.
It is, my old some of my old hangouts are still around on dalnet, anyone else have a bumping server to recc?
I still use it, and run my own server. Easy to run, and easy to use.
I think it's The Protomen, the band, which has an active IRC channel you can use in the browser.
did irc have voice/video/screensharing?
quake mapping community in 2026:
"Download and support documentation are in our Discord!"

It also says that 90 percent of Discord users won’t have to bother with age verification thanks to its age estimation system.
If you believe this...
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