6 ms·

maybe im just getting old but i cant really understand the runaway success of discord, it seems awfully similar to IRC to me

s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
People were tired of getting DDoS'ed so they switched away from Skype/Teamspeak. The nice UX makes it easy for everyone to use, and the community aspect is appealing. IRC isn't very easy to use for the common person.
- tomupom 8y ago
  I agree, there is far less of a learning curve involved with Discord and I believe this helped them win over a younger demographic of users. I also feel like they capitalised on something specific that gamers wanted (chat and voice calls with low latency). Skype call quality is very much hit or miss, and while Mumble is great not everyone has the expertise in setting up a server.
- worble 8y ago
  >The nice UX makes it easy for everyone to use Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, but am I the only one who finds the UX to be atrocious? Everything seems to a nondescript icon that rarely represents what it's supposed to do, nearly everything is flat so it's hard to tell what you can actually click on and whats decoration. Everytime I use it feels like an exercise in mental gymnastics just to navigate it.
  - chrisan 8y ago
    Have an example? Everything I click on has some action I can do. I'm 40 and grew up on mIRC, Discord feels a natural evolution with all the new features.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
    I mean... 90% of the UI is just text. The only icons are for the server images and some minor ones like emojis in the text input. Have a specific example?
- gsich 8y ago
  >IRC isn't very easy to use for the common person. A common person can learn. Also the audience (mostly gamers) know how to do stuff with their computers.
  - sneakernets 8y ago
    In today's mobile world, IRC sucks. I've used IRC for years. Sending files is a pain in the ass due to everyone being behind NATs these days. People can flood servers with garbage. Names can be squatted and trolls can run free. Not so much with Discord. It also doesn't require a bouncer just so you can go from mobile to PC to tablet without issue.
panic 8y ago
Here are a few things that make Discord nicer than IRC for ordinary (non-voice) chat: 1. You can start a new server right in the client by clicking a button. 2. Logs are saved server-side and synced across all your clients (phone, PC, etc). 3. You can upload images and videos to be hosted by Discord's servers. Media and links appear inline in the chat log. 4. No strange rituals involving NickServ or ChanServ. 5. Mobile notifications.
- bathory 8y ago
  Regarding 4.), only once which is your account creation which is valid across all discord servers
  - Klover 8y ago
    That depends on the server. You can set it to public, or a mix between the two. Or even a public channel, a registered channel, and a channel for people with 2FA. The way I got into Discord was some open source project had a link on their GitHub page for collaboration, I clicked that, entered a name and within minutes I was helping out with some code. A cookie kept my temporary account alive. I don’t remember any trolls or spammers or anything. I noticed there’s a setting to control the amount of filtering for your server. And I think there’s also a captcha the first time a temporary user joins.
- lmedinas 8y ago
  In addition to this you have integration with other gaming platforms like: Battle.net, Steam, Twitch and for example join a game directly from Discord.
- hedgew 8y ago
  6. You don't need to publicize your IP address by default.
  - Sendotsh 8y ago
    IPs have been hidden on most IRC servers for years now.
fvjft 8y ago
Apart from the (more than obvious) technical feats, they've raised a lot of money and can afford to offer all of their services, some of them a bit expensive, for free. If they can't find a way to monetise, though, they'll be in trouble. Had TeamSpeak or Mumble been able to offer hosted services for free, maybe Discord wouldn't have existed.
- Semaphor 8y ago
  They have pushed monetization recently. Discord Nitro went from custom id, animated avatar and all emotes of all your servers everywhere to a game subscription service (obviously while raising the price)
  - fvjft 8y ago
    I looked at the games when they launched and they all were indie rubbish, so what can I tell you.
    - Semaphor 8y ago
      Besides a bunch of lootbox stuff for the kiddie shooters, there is Civ IV, XCOM:EU, Bioshock 1&2, Metro 2033 Redux, Project Highrise, Metro Last Light Redux, OOTP18, Tyranny, and so on. Most of those are not for me, but Indie rubbish seems a bit off.
  - starshadowx2 8y ago
    There is still the Nitro classic with just the extra account features, the game subscription is an extra piece if you want it.
loktarogar 8y ago
voice is one of the killer features - simple, instant voice chat, just give someone a link and they're pretty much in. no mucking about with settings. in gamer circles that's huge, and the IRC functionality made it great for game guilds or group of friends for async messaging. compare discord to say teamspeak or ventrilo before it, where you had to both set up the software and configure it, as well as rent or own a server for people to connect to, discord was a godsend and miles better than skype
ktpsns 8y ago
I recently looked into Discord since ~4yrs, and noticed the UI looks almost exactly like a copy of Slack (http://www.slack.com http://www.slack.com).
- chrisan 8y ago
  And both look like copies of mIRC with added features. And I'm sure mIRC copied their layout from someone else
- avinium 8y ago
  Completely disagree. This is just my personal opinion, but I (and my circle) have found Discord to have the worst UI of any mainstream application. First, there's only a dark theme, which I find much more difficult to read than Slack's default light theme. Every window (native client) is crammed full of widgets, making it very difficult for fresh users to figure out which button to click to invite people. It's also constantly firing off unread notifications, adding more and more density to the UI. It makes it very difficult to instantly know where to look. As another example, I just fired up the desktop client and created a random server - and now I literally have no idea how to delete or disconnect from it. I'm not a fan of Slack for other reasons, but its UI is far, far superior to Discord.
jypepin 8y ago
not saying that in a negative way, and I agree that for someone who understands IRC, IRC is great! But this comment is very similar to the infamous rsync comment on the Dropbox original Show HN post. Most people don't know IRC, are put off by it's raw (or lack of) design, etc. It's much easier to sell something like slack/discord than IRC. I remember having so many engineers fighting against HipChat being too slow, and saying we should just use IRC. Yes, in a way it's true, it does everything we'd need, it's fast, can be self hosted etc... but Nancy from HR or Paul from finance would NOT want to figure out how it works.
- nindalf 8y ago
  The top comment on Dropbox's original announcement went like > For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software ... is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?
  - mruts 8y ago
    He's probably right, it's not reasonable and dropbox is a shitty product. But the market has determined it's valuable, despite what we techies think.
- xfitm3 8y ago
  IRC is great precisely because it filters out people you don’t want to talk to - such as HR.
- mruts 8y ago
  I've never used HipChat but I always hated Slack. My boss would always delete my comments without telling me when he didn't like what I said.
wetpaws 8y ago
It is popular exactly because it is similar to irc. Original IRC was great but despite all my love it did not age well.
afarrell 8y ago
One thing I really appreciate about both Discord and Slack are the ability to insert newlines into messages to make them easier to read.
gambler 8y ago
That's exactly why it's successful. It has the playful tone of the old IRC, ICQ, and 90s web chats that's totally missing from most modern platforms. Probably the most "social" of all communication offerings I've seen and used recently. It's designed to talk to people you don't necessarily know, as opposed to just leeching off your existing social connections from the real world. I really hope they don't end up selling out to Microsoft/Google/Facebook or use their platform to do some form of political activism. On the other hand, Discord seems like a good match for small businesses. Would be interested in seeing something offered on that end.
pault 8y ago
It's the community. I joined a discord server a few months ago to get support from some product (I can't remember what), and once I started using it I realized there are vibrant communities for all of my hobbies and interests. I now have a bunch of new friends that are into building mechanical keyboards that live in the same city. I would never have met them if I hadn't accidentally stumbled onto Discord.

s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago

People were tired of getting DDoS'ed so they switched away from Skype/Teamspeak. The nice UX makes it easy for everyone to use, and the community aspect is appealing. IRC isn't very easy to use for the common person.

tomupom 8y ago
I agree, there is far less of a learning curve involved with Discord and I believe this helped them win over a younger demographic of users. I also feel like they capitalised on something specific that gamers wanted (chat and voice calls with low latency). Skype call quality is very much hit or miss, and while Mumble is great not everyone has the expertise in setting up a server.
worble 8y ago
>The nice UX makes it easy for everyone to use Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, but am I the only one who finds the UX to be atrocious? Everything seems to a nondescript icon that rarely represents what it's supposed to do, nearly everything is flat so it's hard to tell what you can actually click on and whats decoration. Everytime I use it feels like an exercise in mental gymnastics just to navigate it.
- chrisan 8y ago
  Have an example? Everything I click on has some action I can do. I'm 40 and grew up on mIRC, Discord feels a natural evolution with all the new features.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
  I mean... 90% of the UI is just text. The only icons are for the server images and some minor ones like emojis in the text input. Have a specific example?
gsich 8y ago
>IRC isn't very easy to use for the common person. A common person can learn. Also the audience (mostly gamers) know how to do stuff with their computers.
- sneakernets 8y ago
  In today's mobile world, IRC sucks. I've used IRC for years. Sending files is a pain in the ass due to everyone being behind NATs these days. People can flood servers with garbage. Names can be squatted and trolls can run free. Not so much with Discord. It also doesn't require a bouncer just so you can go from mobile to PC to tablet without issue.

panic 8y ago

Here are a few things that make Discord nicer than IRC for ordinary (non-voice) chat: 1. You can start a new server right in the client by clicking a button. 2. Logs are saved server-side and synced across all your clients (phone, PC, etc). 3. You can upload images and videos to be hosted by Discord's servers. Media and links appear inline in the chat log. 4. No strange rituals involving NickServ or ChanServ. 5. Mobile notifications.

bathory 8y ago
Regarding 4.), only once which is your account creation which is valid across all discord servers
- Klover 8y ago
  That depends on the server. You can set it to public, or a mix between the two. Or even a public channel, a registered channel, and a channel for people with 2FA. The way I got into Discord was some open source project had a link on their GitHub page for collaboration, I clicked that, entered a name and within minutes I was helping out with some code. A cookie kept my temporary account alive. I don’t remember any trolls or spammers or anything. I noticed there’s a setting to control the amount of filtering for your server. And I think there’s also a captcha the first time a temporary user joins.
lmedinas 8y ago
In addition to this you have integration with other gaming platforms like: Battle.net, Steam, Twitch and for example join a game directly from Discord.
hedgew 8y ago
6. You don't need to publicize your IP address by default.
- Sendotsh 8y ago
  IPs have been hidden on most IRC servers for years now.

fvjft 8y ago

Apart from the (more than obvious) technical feats, they've raised a lot of money and can afford to offer all of their services, some of them a bit expensive, for free. If they can't find a way to monetise, though, they'll be in trouble. Had TeamSpeak or Mumble been able to offer hosted services for free, maybe Discord wouldn't have existed.

Semaphor 8y ago
They have pushed monetization recently. Discord Nitro went from custom id, animated avatar and all emotes of all your servers everywhere to a game subscription service (obviously while raising the price)
- fvjft 8y ago
  I looked at the games when they launched and they all were indie rubbish, so what can I tell you.
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    Besides a bunch of lootbox stuff for the kiddie shooters, there is Civ IV, XCOM:EU, Bioshock 1&2, Metro 2033 Redux, Project Highrise, Metro Last Light Redux, OOTP18, Tyranny, and so on. Most of those are not for me, but Indie rubbish seems a bit off.
- starshadowx2 8y ago
  There is still the Nitro classic with just the extra account features, the game subscription is an extra piece if you want it.

loktarogar 8y ago

voice is one of the killer features - simple, instant voice chat, just give someone a link and they're pretty much in. no mucking about with settings. in gamer circles that's huge, and the IRC functionality made it great for game guilds or group of friends for async messaging. compare discord to say teamspeak or ventrilo before it, where you had to both set up the software and configure it, as well as rent or own a server for people to connect to, discord was a godsend and miles better than skype

ktpsns 8y ago

I recently looked into Discord since ~4yrs, and noticed the UI looks almost exactly like a copy of Slack (http://www.slack.com http://www.slack.com).

chrisan 8y ago
And both look like copies of mIRC with added features. And I'm sure mIRC copied their layout from someone else
avinium 8y ago
Completely disagree. This is just my personal opinion, but I (and my circle) have found Discord to have the worst UI of any mainstream application. First, there's only a dark theme, which I find much more difficult to read than Slack's default light theme. Every window (native client) is crammed full of widgets, making it very difficult for fresh users to figure out which button to click to invite people. It's also constantly firing off unread notifications, adding more and more density to the UI. It makes it very difficult to instantly know where to look. As another example, I just fired up the desktop client and created a random server - and now I literally have no idea how to delete or disconnect from it. I'm not a fan of Slack for other reasons, but its UI is far, far superior to Discord.

jypepin 8y ago

not saying that in a negative way, and I agree that for someone who understands IRC, IRC is great! But this comment is very similar to the infamous rsync comment on the Dropbox original Show HN post. Most people don't know IRC, are put off by it's raw (or lack of) design, etc. It's much easier to sell something like slack/discord than IRC. I remember having so many engineers fighting against HipChat being too slow, and saying we should just use IRC. Yes, in a way it's true, it does everything we'd need, it's fast, can be self hosted etc... but Nancy from HR or Paul from finance would NOT want to figure out how it works.

nindalf 8y ago
The top comment on Dropbox's original announcement went like > For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software ... is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?
- mruts 8y ago
  He's probably right, it's not reasonable and dropbox is a shitty product. But the market has determined it's valuable, despite what we techies think.
xfitm3 8y ago
IRC is great precisely because it filters out people you don’t want to talk to - such as HR.
mruts 8y ago
I've never used HipChat but I always hated Slack. My boss would always delete my comments without telling me when he didn't like what I said.

wetpaws 8y ago

It is popular exactly because it is similar to irc. Original IRC was great but despite all my love it did not age well.

afarrell 8y ago

One thing I really appreciate about both Discord and Slack are the ability to insert newlines into messages to make them easier to read.

gambler 8y ago

That's exactly why it's successful. It has the playful tone of the old IRC, ICQ, and 90s web chats that's totally missing from most modern platforms. Probably the most "social" of all communication offerings I've seen and used recently. It's designed to talk to people you don't necessarily know, as opposed to just leeching off your existing social connections from the real world. I really hope they don't end up selling out to Microsoft/Google/Facebook or use their platform to do some form of political activism. On the other hand, Discord seems like a good match for small businesses. Would be interested in seeing something offered on that end.

pault 8y ago

It's the community. I joined a discord server a few months ago to get support from some product (I can't remember what), and once I started using it I realized there are vibrant communities for all of my hobbies and interests. I now have a bunch of new friends that are into building mechanical keyboards that live in the same city. I would never have met them if I hadn't accidentally stumbled onto Discord.