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.
Looks like Discord will do a Reddit in the near future.
I recommend switching to Matrix.
I’m constantly looking for something that could replace discord for me, I need something like the discord screen/game streaming to consider changing apps.
the problem isn’t switching, the problem is making all the other people using It to switch too, not everyone cares about security or ads
There’s also privacy issues with Matrix:
- Account deletion on Discord: username becomes [deleted]
- Account deletion on Matrix: will not delete username
- GDPR-compliant account deletion on Matrix: will not delete username
Discord is also one (admittedly very lousy) company, while Matrix starts with the privacy issues and just gets worse
Edit x2: I can’t place a parenthesis to save my life
Go, change it! It’s open source.
Right after you promise to convince all their moneyed interests to accept those changes into the repositories they manage
i dont use it and im curious, what interests? i tought is was FOSS?
Shit takes time bro. We’re all trying not to starve to death here.
Yep most of the communities I like are on Discord nothing I can’t do.
most of the communities period are on discord
even the one that really have no business being in there and really should be on a forum
I have happily succeeded. While there are some communities that are still on Discord, the vast majority of my friends are accessible on Matrix.
I hate this recommendation because Matrix is just a terrible user experience. It has basically nothing of value over Discord other than being open source. Which is important but it’s not enough to counteract the amount of basic quality of life stuff that is just absolutely trash garbage on Matrix. Stuff that no normal user is going to put up with.
If Discord does end up completely eviscerating itself the replacement will just be some new upstart closed Source program that is shiny just like how Discord took over from Slack it will not be the rise of Open Source because open source developers have no concept of user experience.
I mean we don’t even need to start talking about how bad all the client options are and how half the features don’t work and all that. You can look no further than the login system. Average users do not like want or accept having multiple options for logging in. There’s a reason that irc, teamspeak, mumble despite in many ways being objectively Superior especially in the case of the voice chats ended up relegated to only nerds like us. Because no one else is willing to deal with keeping track of servers to connect with or how to cross join or add users.
Same reason that Lemmy is like 90% technical users that are already invested in something like Linux. The average user got frustrated by how fragmented everything is how many duplicate channels and content you would find between instances and how difficult it was to search instances in the first place. I am here because I can ultimately work around those emoians, but the average person? Is not willing to and they shouldn’t have to
Someone else mentioned Revolt.chat higher in the thread and it seems to be a promising FOSS replacement for Discord. It’s looking to fix some of Matrix’s issues like not having voice channels (voice calls on Matrix aren’t the same)
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Which is important but it’s not enough to counteract the amount of basic quality of life stuff that is just absolutely trash garbage on Matrix
The thread is about discord adding ads in their platform, so much of user experience… there’s no such trash on matrix
You don’t need to be a technical user to use matrix you simply don’t have to be closed minded
some new upstart closed Source program that is shiny just like how Discord took over from Slack
Guilded already exists. It’s a Discord clone with more features, but no one uses it. I assume they are just waiting for Discord to fail one day.
It’s because is owned by Roblox.
I didn’t look into it much other than trying it out for 15 min. Good to know lol.
There is one huge thing of value in Matrix: e2ee.
Sadly, the normies don’t care about stuff like that, and the UX is indeed atrocious.
Matrix is rough, but it can be the future. Revolt seemed more complete for the time being.
They already have
Pre IPO allocations were available two years 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.
I didn’t get past the sign in page because I was having too much fun looking at all of the localization options for their website.
The default is “🇺🇸 English (Simplified)”, but they have “☠️Pirate”, “Toki Pona”, “🥹Bottom”, “😸OwO”, “🪄 Enchantment Table”, and many other funny options.
revolt
Are there public servers / communities?
Yes. As I said, it’s basically Discord.
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.
And thus begins the enshittification of Discord
It has always sucked. From the beginning it was privacy-invasive, had no real business model, has had crappy Electron apps and has been proprietary.
(Last I checked) From this spreadsheet, Discord is the fourth worst messaging platform in terms of privacy. Now a new row for “Has ads” will have to be added…
According to my iPhones privacy viewer it’s almost worse than Facebook.
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
mumble is free and open source.
Isn’t Mumble just a voice chat software? I don’t think that is the main use case for Discord for most people.
Yeah, discord is for running a community not just chatting in voice.
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.
So is Matrix and it includes self-hosting and end-to-end encryption enabled by default.
Did they rewrite that crappy Python server in something with better performance by now? I tried self-hosting Matrix a few years ago and gave up after the one room I joined hadn’t finished syncing after a whole day (admittedly it was their main matrix chat room with lots of members but still).
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/
There are multiple options for homeservers and the Python one is just one of several implementations. There are others written in C++, Rust, Go!, etc.
That hasn’t been an issue for a year if you’ve enabled sliding sync. It is very fast nowadays. Look into element-x https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android
Element X is a client.
Element doesn’t support sliding sync
And no one uses it. The last time I used mumble was over a decade ago and its use was short lived.
Time to move to Matrix then, and I’m not even joking. Ads are Aids.
Why not Mumble and IRC or XMPP?
Which of them support e2e in group chats by default?
XMPP with OMEMO.
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.
If it wasn’t a privacy nightmare maybe I will consider paying, but data theft + ads? Naaaah.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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/
- 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.
Nitro is right there… and yet… these changes happened.
Because of people… like you… who provide nothing to a free service besides costing bandwidth… leeches to a free internet… vampires to charity…
Good. Maybe people will finally move on to something else.
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.
Enshittyfication as normal
Looking at all those companies that moved their support to Discord.
But I thought we cold have free support in realtime with security updates for free forever?
It would’ve been very smart of them to have this ad change only affect business ownedchannels, and then open up a fee option for businesses to no longer have ads on their channel
If you don’t use Discord for voice much, Matrix has a pretty solid bridges you can use.
Hosting your own Matrix server is suprisingly way easier than I though - got a VM on hertzner for like 5$ a month, and there is an Ansible script that takes care of the setup for you. It’s also one of those rare cases where someone made an Ansible script that actually works, instead of you getting stuck in dependency-hell (seriously, fuck npm. Not a single docker or ansible tool that has used it ever worked for me out of the box. Python can get simillarly annoying).
They have a pretty easy to follow guide, and the whole setup took me like 20 minutes. I only edited a few options in config.yml (mostly to add Messenger and Discord bridge), and ran the ansible, and it worked at first try.
So I could at least ditch both messenger and discord apps from my PC and phone, without having to convince anyone to quit their poison - with only issue being that you can’t use Discord voice. And that the messenger bridge is still unreliable sometimes, but those are still minor inconviniences in comparison to my deep-seated hate for Meta.
Of course - Meta still gets my chat data and content, same as Discord. But at least they don’t get anything else from my phone or PC.
Matrix bridges are nice until you realize that you have to be a mod in the server to add the bridge, you need to do it not only for every Discord server you want to use on matrix, but every channel as well. It’s a huge chore. And ofc it doesn’t work with Discord DMs.
Not blaming Matrix or the matrix bridge developers here because it’s not their fault. But let’s be honest: matrix bridges are a pain to set up for Discord and for a majority of people aren’t worth the hassle. Moving to Matrix would be the better choice if at all possible
you need to do it not only for every Discord server you want to use on matrix, but every channel as well. It’s a huge chore. And ofc it doesn’t work with Discord DMs.
This wasn’t my experience at all - all I had to do was message the Matrix bot with servers I want to join (I’m not a mod on any of them), and it bridged all channels in that server. Also, Discord DMs are working fine.
I’m using the mautrix bridge, which doesn’t use a bot or anything like that, but uses your Discord session instead.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That sounds laughable. Gross. No thanks.
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.
We need to fix people. This proprietary shit is dystopian.
Make the apps pretty, sure, but long term; fix people.
To be fair, there was a time before Discord. People once used MSN, Skype, Teamspeak, IRC, etc.
They shouldn’t get too comfortable with the idea that people won’t just up and leave.
Discord has real advantages over many of those, and communities are slow to pick up and move. It’ll take either a very bad decision from discord or a good competitor. I want that competitor to be Matrix, but it’s far from perfect.
Well, adding ads could easily be that very bad decision, if anything can position itself as an attractive alternative fast enough
I don’t think it will take just one of those, it will take both.
There has to be something to leave for
Matrix
Closest I know is Revolt.
Steam supports direct voice chat. My friends use it for gaming.
Also, teamspeak.
Steam doesn’t let me make my own survers with categorized groups and stuff
More, you need to convince the that this shit being inevitable is why you need FOSS.
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.
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.
I’m not leaving my communities for yet another app. When they migrate I will too.
Dude. You can install multiple apps on your phone. I’m pretty sure.
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.
SMS? You mean the paid, vendor lock-in, MITMable traffic? Possibly one of the only options that is actually worse than Discord
I don’t always force my friends to use Discord alternatives, but when I do I force them to use Signal.
Took fucking years but i dragged them to signal kicking and screaming, people are such little bitches
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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.
If it helps, I’m pretty sure the devs are in the process of rewriting the UI on a private repo. Idk if there’s any eta or progress chart
Writing code in private and then throwing it over the wall to the public is usually a pretty huge red flag with projects that are already public.
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It’s way better than Matrix
No E2EE for DMs, groups, or notes.
That’s going to be the deal breaker for most.
Matrix is far too slow for what it’s intended to be. I’d certainly like to see E2EE come to Revolt.
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