I'm not really disagreeing with you about discord and google docs being popular but something strikes me about it. (1) because they're both centrally controlle

I'm not really disagreeing with you about discord and google docs being popular but something strikes me about it. (1) because they're both centrally controlled, which leads to some of the same problems (2) google docs for chat is pretty ad hoc, which is fine at some level, but points to something (secrecy? ban-proof-ness? teenagers co-opting something where there might be a better solution, like irc or riot or various group chats?) (3) I don't think google docs or discord are quite the same as twitter etc. in the sense that they serve a different function (group chat)... maybe discord has some similarities but it seems to serve a different function. which leads me to: How much is this discussion about centralization versus public versus private-facing communication? I've always felt that centralization (as opposed to federation or decentralization) is a bad thing (or at least, less desirable, network math be damned), and think that some old-school things are underrated (e.g., IRC). At the same time, there's been a common thread for years of people wanting to communicate over the internet without the technical hassle. webpage without learning networking and programming -> MySpace/Facebook... rss without learning networking and programming -> twitter... forums without learning forum software and dealing with name registries etc. -> reddit ... I've toyed around with mastodon and have been struck by how much it has the feel of a lot of the old web, but it seems like it needs more critical mass to take off like something like email.