5 ms·

How Discord (somewhat accidentally) invented the future of the internet

27 points by elsewhen 6y ago

davidn20 6y ago
Discord can be special, but at least for me, I find it hard to feel like a part of a community. Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe I'm nostalgically remembering how awesome the internet was back in the day. But, I find it extremely hard to make friends online and be a part of a community now. I tried searching out topics I'm interested in but I rarely engage with it. I find this to be true for 95% of the users. Somewhere along the line, the switch from "these are people" to "these are random strangers on the internet" took place.
- okatsu 6y ago
  Same. I'm sure Discord is special to people today in the same way that AIM, IRC and phpBB forums were special to me growing up.
  - Darmody 6y ago
    Yes and no. The massive use of the internet makes communities very different now than they were 15-20 years ago. I don't see the same level of fascination with Discord that we had back in the day with IRC. Maybe because we're used to it now and having a chat with thousands of people.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  I grew up with IRC (and still idle on various channels, and Discord is definitely the closest anything has come to replacing that community feeling from the 90s and early 2000s. They're all very niche servers - I'd say about 10 daily active users - which definitely helps cultivate that same intimacy (for want of a better word).
nikivi 6y ago
Discord can be something special once they increase the limit of only 200 servers you can connect to.
- BurritoAlPastor 6y ago
  I can’t imagine being in 100 Discord servers. Could you share your use case?
  - sieabahlpark 6y ago
    Someone who thinks they're a "poweruser"
  - nikivi 6y ago
    Just lots of communities I am part of. Some I am active in, some I joined but still want to be part of like IFTTT (don't use it but people share some interesting automation ideas there I can replicate in another system).
lazyant 6y ago
"invented the future of the internet" If you change the skin I could barely tell the difference with Slack. This is just showing my ignorance but I don't get what's special about any of these chatroom tools, as in they all seem interchangeable.
- andreilys 6y ago
  It’s just a clickbait headline, don’t read into it too much. Financial incentives for these media companies necessitates the need to make outlandish clickbait claims to drive eyeballs.
  - bredren 6y ago
    I also clicked assuming I had missed something about Discord. It is bad for the brand of the publication to do this. I would have been interested in just a good overview of the company. I did not know the founders did openfeint. I remember that product and considered it for an iOS app I was working on at the time. What I’m not sure about is how to penalize publications for essentially false advertising in editorialized headlines. They want attention to show ads, they have to go about garnering it ethically.
capnorange 6y ago
My company chat is completely on Discord. It is definitely an upgrade from Slack.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  Once Discord gets threading it will be unstoppable.
RasmusSoerensen 6y ago
Started to really like discord. Feels a bit more like a community compared to Slack I would say
upofadown 6y ago
>But Vind said one feature particularly stood out: "Being able to just jump on an empty voice chat, basically telling people, 'Hey, I'm here, do you want to join and talk?'" Can anyone explain how that is different than, say, Mumble?
- p0nce 6y ago
  Discord originally sold itself as an alternative to Mumble. We've tried Mumble during lockdown and the comparison was heavily in favour of Discord, it's simply much better.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    I'm curious, would you care to expand ?
    - p0nce 6y ago
      I don't remember specifics, but Mumble has more configuration, it was hard to make it work, worse UX an in the end the audio quality was also worse.
dancemethis 6y ago
Sounds like a very bleak future. One where all user data and metadata are at the hands of a company that not only is able to do the same... not-quite-nice things as others did and were proven to do so by Snowden, but whose founder already had a product ending with a privacy lawsuit scandal on its bag.
banger180 6y ago
Too bad it is a completely proprietary walled garden and that they do not care about privacy or security. I would love for matrix to eventually replace discord, but ATM discord is still a better user experience.

27 points by elsewhen 6y ago

Discord can be special, but at least for me, I find it hard to feel like a part of a community. Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe I'm nostalgically remembering how awesome the internet was back in the day. But, I find it extremely hard to make friends online and be a part of a community now. I tried searching out topics I'm interested in but I rarely engage with it. I find this to be true for 95% of the users. Somewhere along the line, the switch from "these are people" to "these are random strangers on the internet" took place.

okatsu 6y ago
Same. I'm sure Discord is special to people today in the same way that AIM, IRC and phpBB forums were special to me growing up.
- Darmody 6y ago
  Yes and no. The massive use of the internet makes communities very different now than they were 15-20 years ago. I don't see the same level of fascination with Discord that we had back in the day with IRC. Maybe because we're used to it now and having a chat with thousands of people.
nmfisher 6y ago
I grew up with IRC (and still idle on various channels, and Discord is definitely the closest anything has come to replacing that community feeling from the 90s and early 2000s. They're all very niche servers - I'd say about 10 daily active users - which definitely helps cultivate that same intimacy (for want of a better word).

nikivi 6y ago

Discord can be something special once they increase the limit of only 200 servers you can connect to.

BurritoAlPastor 6y ago
I can’t imagine being in 100 Discord servers. Could you share your use case?
- sieabahlpark 6y ago
  Someone who thinks they're a "poweruser"
- nikivi 6y ago
  Just lots of communities I am part of. Some I am active in, some I joined but still want to be part of like IFTTT (don't use it but people share some interesting automation ideas there I can replicate in another system).

lazyant 6y ago

"invented the future of the internet" If you change the skin I could barely tell the difference with Slack. This is just showing my ignorance but I don't get what's special about any of these chatroom tools, as in they all seem interchangeable.

andreilys 6y ago
It’s just a clickbait headline, don’t read into it too much. Financial incentives for these media companies necessitates the need to make outlandish clickbait claims to drive eyeballs.
- bredren 6y ago
  I also clicked assuming I had missed something about Discord. It is bad for the brand of the publication to do this. I would have been interested in just a good overview of the company. I did not know the founders did openfeint. I remember that product and considered it for an iOS app I was working on at the time. What I’m not sure about is how to penalize publications for essentially false advertising in editorialized headlines. They want attention to show ads, they have to go about garnering it ethically.

capnorange 6y ago

My company chat is completely on Discord. It is definitely an upgrade from Slack.

naikrovek 6y ago
Once Discord gets threading it will be unstoppable.

RasmusSoerensen 6y ago

Started to really like discord. Feels a bit more like a community compared to Slack I would say

upofadown 6y ago

>But Vind said one feature particularly stood out: "Being able to just jump on an empty voice chat, basically telling people, 'Hey, I'm here, do you want to join and talk?'" Can anyone explain how that is different than, say, Mumble?

p0nce 6y ago
Discord originally sold itself as an alternative to Mumble. We've tried Mumble during lockdown and the comparison was heavily in favour of Discord, it's simply much better.
- rakoo 6y ago
  I'm curious, would you care to expand ?
  - p0nce 6y ago
    I don't remember specifics, but Mumble has more configuration, it was hard to make it work, worse UX an in the end the audio quality was also worse.

dancemethis 6y ago

Sounds like a very bleak future. One where all user data and metadata are at the hands of a company that not only is able to do the same... not-quite-nice things as others did and were proven to do so by Snowden, but whose founder already had a product ending with a privacy lawsuit scandal on its bag.

banger180 6y ago

Too bad it is a completely proprietary walled garden and that they do not care about privacy or security. I would love for matrix to eventually replace discord, but ATM discord is still a better user experience.