How that MIGHT change things?
Just look at every other tech company in the space that’s gone public to see how it WILL change things. It’s not a mystery at this point.
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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The real question is how do you enshittify a product that is already shit?
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Let the final enshitification commence
╰( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )つ──☆*:・ﾟ
Is discord not enshitty?
I open it and it updates 6 times, then I get a full page ad for nitro. Then all the settings push nitro. And all the “servers” push nitro.
It's the best at what it does, but had been getting shitty in the way you described. However, it's free and they have to support it somehow. I'll put up with the nitro pushing and understand that's my cost of doing business. If they go public, I'll probably actively start looking for an alternative, because that always kills a product and it will for sure mean "AI" will be forced into it.
It's the best at what it does…
Locking data away from search engines so that unless you’re in that little fiefdom you don’t get the information.
Probably that too, but specifically the ability to spin up a private space to communicate with people for things like video games. Anyone that's using it as their means of customer service is an idiot.
Apparently I struck a chord with my post, so I'm curious what is better than discord, and free that made my statement controversial?
Also, I don't see locking data from search engines as a bad thing. The fediverse isn't search engine searchable either and Google, bing, etc, don't natively have the right to index private data.
Also, I don’t see locking data from search engines as a bad thing. The fediverse isn’t search engine searchable either
The fediverse not being searchable is one of the biggest flaws with it, and make it similarly ephemeral to Discord, except its actually worse because the sizes of communities are just in that goldilocks area of awfulness where there are echo chambers, and people are rude and toxic. Whatsmore, availability due to the small size is relatively mediocre.
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And preventing any internet archiving so any and all information on it is lost whenever the server is deleted. It never should have been used for anything but game chat.
However, it’s free and they have to support it somehow.
These arguments might just give me an aneurysm.
This has let so many horrible free to play games off the hook while they literally make billions in profits and have astounding profit margins.
Discord makes money.
In a non hyper greed infested world, they could simply coast at the level of wealth they are at now, still making free money for their investors, paying their workers, and improving the service, without making peoples lives shittier.
There is no reason to justify this shit.
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discord is one of those things i struggle to find an alternative to. not because i lack the skill to do it myself or to make something else do the same tasks, but because all my friends who aren't as techy as me or big servers i like talking to wouldnt migrate.
having seen its decline since 2016, sooner or later ill have to make the jump but its gonna be harder than ditching google or microsoft because of the community aspect of it.
And so many things using it instead of a forum for information or questions
It’s especially bizzare when git repos for “open source corporate alternative” type software uses it over their own repo’s issue trackers and forums.
WTF
They want the social media engagement, I guess. But still. It’s ridiculous how much of a blind spot folks have for it.
It also makes giving or getting any kind of support a hellish time sink, but that’s almost besides the point…
It is an insane choice for a support tool.
It also makes giving or getting any kind of support a hellish time sink, but that’s almost besides the point…
You know, this comment just made me realize this might actually be the point for some companies.
Its a cheap way to pretend that you care about customer service, while actually dissuading customers strongly from actually trying. Its also completely easy to bot vs having a human on a phone line.
A great problem of our society is there being too many problems to have any group of people focus on enough to get any of them solved.
If every issue has just 2% of people caring about it, companies can easily just write those 2% off and do business as usual.
This is why to not have an enshitifed world it has to be top down, and people have to participate in politics logically as opposed to based on which groups of people they hate.
The basic maths of it just doesn't work for any sort of bottom up action.
It would have to be a relative time of quiet and one company sticking out like a sore thumb for long enough for them to be damaged.
You have seen how rapidly things are getting worse.
There is not going to be that happening, and even if there were, it wouldn't be enough as there are thousands more issues.
It will inevitably focus more on pleasing its public investors than anything else, therefore enshittification.
Maybe Steam/Valve is a unicorn, but it's not publicly traded and it's doing just fine.
It is a unicorn. I dread the day Gaben dies and Valve ends up going public. It feels like the last bastion of decent online services.
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"I wish all my friends would leave discord and go to an alternative chat platform"
The monkey paw curls and all your friends move to MS Teams.
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I'm guessing this will lead to more things being locked behind their subscription model. Ransoming core features for cash is the standard template of this process.
what practical alternatives are out there? every gaming and streaming community seems to use discord, but i hate it on the basis of it being an enshittified, proprietary walled garden.
https://stoat.chat/ is fully just discord but FOSS
Edit:their GitHub page
This will not take off until their native apps release and support self hosted rooms.
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None. Closest is Matrix, and it sucks for that purpose because it's more like Slack.
Don't use Discord!
IRC and Matrix are better, free alternatives.
Matrix sadly doesn't have the bots, apj, or infrastructure that Discord has. Not to mention its a horrible alternative to Discord, not having permissionable channels is a deal breaker..
Trust me, I want to abandon this ship more than anything but my games/orgs/clans rely heavily on a lot of discord automation that just isn't even possible in Matrix.
Discord got popular because it did Skype and Mumble better than both, but it has suffered a lot from Enshitification
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I use both matrix and discord regularly and matrix is nowhere near a viable alternative for discord, the way they work is just too different. The only real alternative I've been able to find is guilded but it's no better than discord since it's still completely centralized and closed source
I'm on Matrix. That felt like an epic accomplishment that required both mobile and desktop. I don't remember why it was so difficult, but the registration/login/association process was awful. Maybe that's just Matrix.org.
Looking for things to do with my Pi that I'm upgrading today with an SSD. Maybe I'll run my own Matrix server on it so that there can be something else technically running with no traffic.
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I don’t want to use it but the thing is I need to convince my friends and the 50 servers I’m in to switch too…
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This news comes immediately after they floated the idea of embedding AI, you say?
Pretty much immediately after yeah
Well the developers, like all techbros, have been sweetening up Discord to what it is. Once they find a pretty buyer, they'll sell it for top dollar. That's the real completion cycle of enshittification. Some private firm will have it or someone like Microsoft may have it and do to it like they've done with Skype.
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Yes, finally! I’m ready for this shitty platform to fucking die already.
let the enshittification continue
I genuinely do not know how that would change anything. It‘s already monetized thoroughly. They will just add even more ad campaign quests and stuff which you can ignore.
Have you not seen the world? Everything, no matter how horrific, can always get infinitely worse.
The PIF could buy it and ban gay people. Israel could buy it and persecute people against genocide. A rich right wing billionaire could buy it and force even more nazi memes upon the youth. They could make a monetized limit to how many servers one can join that is purposefully below any sane reasonable or normal level. They could make PMs pay per message.
There are infinite ways it can get worse. Infinite.
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Until they lock it up where you can't. Or they'll decide on selling data and injecting ads into your convos or streams.
In other words this hasn't been enshittified to the max yet at all. There are new and horrible depths to explore.
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