Part of me thinks is this just performative nonsense that will always have enormous holes in it, like Prohibition.
Scanning "your" face to prove your age is really just scanning a face.
But I also worry about successive noose tightening.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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Nah. They want to be an essential service for games.
Verified users of appropriate age.
Integrated game chat.
Integrated game VoIP.
All appropriate-for-age.
Can't develop your own moderation? Just pay discord.
So many companies will pay massive sums to outsource chat/VoIP/age-verification/moderation to discord.
And discord is already the "goto" gaming community provider.
Oh, and shop stuff.
Gift (buy) a friend a cool cosmetic through discord. Already has the community connections. Just needs the reason for games to tightly integrate it (moderation, chat, VoIP, age verification).
It is absolutely a positioning move
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Shout out to Fluxer.
Still don't think its quite ready but its chugging along and its been fun following the progress. I know they have some big updates inbound. Hopefully people actually give it a shot and flip over to Fluxer.
I'd also add that the "Proton" subscrition equivalent - "Plutonium", is a better value proposition. But I will admit, they still need to clear a few hurdles before even I feel completely comfortable ditching Discord.
But its Open Source and it has a self-hosting option, along with the Quality of Life you expect from Discord in terms of the app layout, screen sharing, etc.
Open source is the way. It always amuses me when people move from one proprietary system to a different one, since the new one always ends up having the same issues.
That's because privatized companies spend money to promote their products while open source largely grows through word of mouth. The average person doesn't know about the issues of proprietary software nor the existence of an open source alternative, they just use whatever everyone else uses and everyone else ends up using whatever gets successfully marketed.
The new one usually won't have the same issues at first, but they'll have the same opportunities and motivations that lead to the issues. People will see a different provider and say they're not doing the bad things, and they'll be correct for a few years maybe, but then it becomes a struggle to get them to switch to the next thing. This whole problem would mostly be solved with open-source alternatives instead.
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No.
What's this supposed to mean? I've done similar things when restructuring my code. Git tries it's best to keep track of files changing directories but sometimes you just go fuck it and abandon the history because Git is being a git.
I'd be more concerned about consistent 10k+ changes per day or something
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Holy fuck!
hmm I thought they leaned relatively against AI slop. Wouldn't this be because they were working on it privately or something for quite some time?
It's 11 million lines of fucking code. 11 MILLION LINES.
This commit was the refactor commit from the private dev flow to the open source repo. The process basically added a lot of files and deleted a bunch as well. it was long overdue but I wouldn't expect constant 11m line code changes
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It's obviously some kind of code reorganization, restructuring or reformating, don't be paranoid
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I’ve been eyeing Fluxer for quite a while now. Once they roll out the update where they want to overhaul and streamline the selfhosting part, my friends and I are going to switch
Shout out to Matrix, which is federated, self hostable, open source, and supports end to end encryption.
Matrix is a bit of a shit show and also isn’t a discord alternative to begin with.
Matrix is a bit of a shit show
How so?
and also isn’t a discord alternative to begin with
It absolutely is. A "Space" is the equivalent to a Discord "server". It's not perfect and polished, but it does the job. I've been using it rather than Discord with my gaming group for a year now.
Matrix is a Discord alternative, but not a Discord clone
It’s a slop project.
Is this substantiated?
At this point for many projects it's now depressingly, a matter of degree.
Look at the git and tell me. One guy, contributing 1.5m lines of code is not human made. It’s a matter of time before it falls apart and becomes unmaintainable.
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It shouldn't be up to discord or any other internet entity to verify the age of its users.
Parents. Parents should be monitoring their child's Internet usage.
The internet will become ID verified to protect the kids or terrorism or what ever other reason they feel like. It won't solve the problems it is claimed to help. But if you have unauthorized opinions against government backed genocides then you are marked as a terrorist.
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The way age verification is being pushed feels more like wanting to setting up checkpoints on the edge of a city versus just checking Id's before going into a specific establishment.
I just don't see how this isn't a national login system trying to masquerade itself in a poorly fitting "think of the children!" sheep's skin.
Those people might be unhappy, but most of them will still refuse to move from the platform.
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Yeah, I know a couple of mods whose servers are in a bit of an uproar.
The “unofficial” Arch Linux discord server is inviting/encouraging their members to move to their Fluxer instance. Hopefully that’s a trend that will start.
Fluxer has been an adequate replacement for Discord for my TTRPG group. Been using it since March and it has gotten better every month.
I have no illusions that they may one day become as shitty, but for now it works. And the fact that it's open source and self host able gives me some hope.
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I've been using Fluxer and self hosting Fluxcord to sync my discord server with Fluxer, it's going great.
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I recommend Stoat, it can be selfhosted, open source, there is no shady company behind it, and it works well. There even is top-notch noise filtering, which I found very important for voice calls.
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And how exactly were we expecting it to go? 'Kind of bad'? 🤣
The same day I saw Discord's age verifying message, I uninstalled the app and moved to Matrix (to be fair, I was already on Matrix)
Yet the entire software community depends on it for everything
I really don't understand how a chat app for gamers became so big in the software development community. It's such a poor choice, especially for support. Nothing is indexed in search engines, and people can't see messages unless they join. I've even seen some projects use Discord for bug tracking. It's woefully inadequate for that.
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For those interested you can find alternatives to Discord and any other software on AlternativeTo.net But here are some of the standouts I have found:
- Armada https://armada.buzz/: End to End Encrypted Messaging with Discord Import and similar UI, comms for gaming, Voice and Video Calling, and App and Desktop Streaming at full capability. No Phone # or Email required. Can be self hosted and is Open Source. Win/Linux/Mobile versions Ready to go now.
- Fluxer https://fluxer.app/: As the webpage states "Free and open source chat for friends, groups, and communities, with text, voice, video, screen sharing, and self-hosting." and while functional, they have ramped up development to add guides for self hosting and mobile clients that aren't released yet, and have an ambitious roadmap on their blog. You have to use 3rd party bridging apps for importing Discord Servers.
- Stoat (Formally Revolt) https://stoat.chat/: Another Open Source alternative that you can host your own, but at this time servers aren't connected and they want to do it through Federation, or in other words like email servers, so users can browse public servers. They are early days on the desktop and video sharing as well but they users like it so much and development team is so reachable that donations more than pay for the community service and development. Uses an open web app so anywhere you can get a modern browser to work has access.
- VoltChat https://voltagechat.app/: A platform similar to the previously mentioned Armada, but using its own decentralized federated platform.
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