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I'm interested to see how they manage to convince communities to use their IRC services over competitors like Discord when so many users see Discord as easy, fr

by ve55 8y ago

I'm interested to see how they manage to convince communities to use their IRC services over competitors like Discord when so many users see Discord as easy, free, trendy, etc. Of course services liks Slack, Telegram, Skype, etc, are also potential competitors in this ecosystem. >IRC Gaming (We're going to have literally hundreds of thousands in cash prizes!) I suppose literally paying users money is one way, but it doesn't sound very sustainable. Some of their other projects like "IRC Ventures (VC/Incubation on IRC!)" are pretty hard to imagine the specifics about, but hopefully we'll see some interesting positive actions sooner or later to show us what they really intend to do.

alehul 8y ago
While it requires having a service worth staying on once you're familiarized to be successful, paying users is a valid strategy when a network effect is important. PayPal, as an example, is the result of a merger between Confinity (Thiel's) and X (Musk's) competing services. While I believe Confinity had started earlier, X caught up through literally giving people $20 towards eBay purchases if they sign up.
- zajd 8y ago
  Ahh yes, price dumping, one of the big forces behind "disruption" see: Uber, Lyft, any number of startups growing by losing money, and one of the main anti-competitive forces the government has no desire in addressing. Don't have billions in investor money to lose? You can't play. edit. bring on the downvotes bootlickers, "valid strategy" my ass
  - schoen 8y ago
    Hi zajd, I want to upvote your comment but I don't think I can do that while it calls HN downvoters "bootlickers". Would you consider removing that part?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - int0x80 8y ago
      Do you think he's going to sell his ideas for an upvote?
      - schoen 8y ago
        I thought the big "idea" part of the comment was that investors are distorting markets with huge subsidies. Another idea is that parts of the HN community itself have a disturbing relationship with this practice. But someone can still get those ideas across without calling downvoters "bootlickers"!
pmoriarty 8y ago
Are there any open source Discord clients? So far, I've refused to try it because the only client Gentoo has is a binary blob.
- gsich 8y ago
  It's essentially a browser binary.
- adrianmalacoda 8y ago
  There is a libpurple/Pidgin plugin for Discord. As you might expect, however, it only exposes text chat and not any of the "rich" features such as voice chat or emote reactions. I don't know of any free software full reimplementation of the Discord client, and I suspect such would be against their terms of service.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  No, but there are client + server alternatives that are free. Mumble / Murmur is one. Rock solid and scales to large numbers of users even when running on a tiny VM. They are kindof slow to release new features, so you would want to try their latest snapshot of the server and client.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  I haven't used Discord in a while, but when I did I just ended up logging in via a browser. (The binary blob client had some major cpu/memory issues when I tried it.)
- matoro 8y ago
  https://github.com/MitchWeaver/Discline https://github.com/MitchWeaver/Discline
RpFLCL 8y ago
Good point. I'm a big fan of the federation of different IRC servers, but also like have rich media embeds and drag+drop image uploading, even if that currently means being tied into the discord servers.
- vole 8y ago
  Matrix attempts to be a solution to this
- prawnsalad 8y ago
  (kiwiirc IRC client dev here) This type of thing is down to the clients to put into place and we actually do this now. Drag/drop files, pasting images directly into the client, 1GB files supported, right out of the box. Give it a try! https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/ https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/ I believe other clients are starting to integrate this type of thing too - it's greatly needed
  - RpFLCL 8y ago
    I'll take a look at this over the weekend thanks!
  - cmsj 8y ago
    Yup, irccloud does media embeds and file uploads.
- sanlyx 8y ago
  But I think this is only a problem from a UX standpoint. IRC has DCC, for instance, but it's a matter of building a client which e.g. inlines DCC "attachments" or displays images beneath messages with links. If IRC is truly "revived" there's a chance IRC clients grow or new ones emerge to keep up with "modern" IM systems, and IRC will still have more benefits than these (openness, ubiquity...)
  - mjevans 8y ago
    Forcing content upon others is something I view as an anti-feature. Linking to content that they MAY choose to display (or pre-cache in selective instances) CAN be a feature. For example, I might allow specific rooms that I know are moderated or specific individuals that I trust to push arbitrary data in to my storage. However I definitely do not want that to happen in a random room of strangers.
gsich 8y ago
Why convince? People use IRC because they want to. There is no need to appeal to the masses.

by ve55 8y ago

alehul 8y ago

While it requires having a service worth staying on once you're familiarized to be successful, paying users is a valid strategy when a network effect is important. PayPal, as an example, is the result of a merger between Confinity (Thiel's) and X (Musk's) competing services. While I believe Confinity had started earlier, X caught up through literally giving people $20 towards eBay purchases if they sign up.

zajd 8y ago
Ahh yes, price dumping, one of the big forces behind "disruption" see: Uber, Lyft, any number of startups growing by losing money, and one of the main anti-competitive forces the government has no desire in addressing. Don't have billions in investor money to lose? You can't play. edit. bring on the downvotes bootlickers, "valid strategy" my ass
- schoen 8y ago
  Hi zajd, I want to upvote your comment but I don't think I can do that while it calls HN downvoters "bootlickers". Would you consider removing that part?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - int0x80 8y ago
    Do you think he's going to sell his ideas for an upvote?
    - schoen 8y ago
      I thought the big "idea" part of the comment was that investors are distorting markets with huge subsidies. Another idea is that parts of the HN community itself have a disturbing relationship with this practice. But someone can still get those ideas across without calling downvoters "bootlickers"!

pmoriarty 8y ago

Are there any open source Discord clients? So far, I've refused to try it because the only client Gentoo has is a binary blob.

gsich 8y ago
It's essentially a browser binary.
adrianmalacoda 8y ago
There is a libpurple/Pidgin plugin for Discord. As you might expect, however, it only exposes text chat and not any of the "rich" features such as voice chat or emote reactions. I don't know of any free software full reimplementation of the Discord client, and I suspect such would be against their terms of service.
LinuxBender 8y ago
No, but there are client + server alternatives that are free. Mumble / Murmur is one. Rock solid and scales to large numbers of users even when running on a tiny VM. They are kindof slow to release new features, so you would want to try their latest snapshot of the server and client.
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
I haven't used Discord in a while, but when I did I just ended up logging in via a browser. (The binary blob client had some major cpu/memory issues when I tried it.)
matoro 8y ago
https://github.com/MitchWeaver/Discline https://github.com/MitchWeaver/Discline

RpFLCL 8y ago

Good point. I'm a big fan of the federation of different IRC servers, but also like have rich media embeds and drag+drop image uploading, even if that currently means being tied into the discord servers.

vole 8y ago
Matrix attempts to be a solution to this
prawnsalad 8y ago
(kiwiirc IRC client dev here) This type of thing is down to the clients to put into place and we actually do this now. Drag/drop files, pasting images directly into the client, 1GB files supported, right out of the box. Give it a try! https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/ https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/ I believe other clients are starting to integrate this type of thing too - it's greatly needed
- RpFLCL 8y ago
  I'll take a look at this over the weekend thanks!
- cmsj 8y ago
  Yup, irccloud does media embeds and file uploads.
sanlyx 8y ago
But I think this is only a problem from a UX standpoint. IRC has DCC, for instance, but it's a matter of building a client which e.g. inlines DCC "attachments" or displays images beneath messages with links. If IRC is truly "revived" there's a chance IRC clients grow or new ones emerge to keep up with "modern" IM systems, and IRC will still have more benefits than these (openness, ubiquity...)
- mjevans 8y ago
  Forcing content upon others is something I view as an anti-feature. Linking to content that they MAY choose to display (or pre-cache in selective instances) CAN be a feature. For example, I might allow specific rooms that I know are moderated or specific individuals that I trust to push arbitrary data in to my storage. However I definitely do not want that to happen in a random room of strangers.

gsich 8y ago

Why convince? People use IRC because they want to. There is no need to appeal to the masses.