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so.... Discord will be a hellscape in 3-5 years as its inevitably destroyed by corporate greed?
by xevrem 5y ago
so.... Discord will be a hellscape in 3-5 years as its inevitably destroyed by corporate greed?
- larinzod 5y agoAye, nothing like investor pressure and quarterly growth targets to kill an otherwise good company/product.
- coldpie 5y agoThis is how tech startups work, isn't it? Use investors to build a product with no business model, then the founders cash out via purchase or IPO, and soon after the fact that you have no business model comes to light and the product falls apart trying to find a business model, while users move on to the next shiny thing with no business model.
- ergot_vacation 5y agoGlad I'm not the only one thinking this. Seems obvious, but I always felt like I was missing something. How is it that most of the tech/SV world is just the same con being run over and over again, yet it keeps working? Does it operate on the same psychological glitch as a lottery? Do the giant corps buying these startups all think "I know how it's been in the past, but surely THIS startup WON'T turn to shit the moment I buy it because it was never a real business to begin with! This time for sure!" Or are the real suckers the investors, and the corps are just doing these purchases in a performative capacity to keep razzle-dazzling them?
- whall6 5y agoHave you read through any of Facebook’s recent 10-Ks?
- echelon 5y agoIf they're that bad, what keeps the stock price propped up and the morale high?
- vmception 5y agoThe real answer is that you should be selling these works of fiction on the Nasdaq too.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y agoA lot of actual profits have been made by mature tech companies. Valuations seem too high right now, but I don’t think it’s a giant fraud. More like there’s nothing better to invest in.
- pseudalopex 5y agoSome acquisitions are just to eliminate potential competitors.
- Ericson2314 5y agoYes, the model is entirely built on acquisitions, where discord itself can't be profitable, but part of Microsoft it can deliver value by deepening the mote around everything else. Many things are only valuable as a public good or part of monopoly. Such is funny relationship between monopolization and socialism.
- wongarsu 5y agoDiscord has a business model: Get people engaged in a community, sell them Nitro so they can boost their communities [1][2]. The "buy benefits for you community" scheme is wildly successful in mobile games, so I wouldn't be surprised if it works well for Discord. 1: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028038352-Server-Boosting- https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028038352-S... 2: https://discord.com/nitro https://discord.com/nitro
- batrat 5y agoYet they are not profitable. It seems that "nitro" is not enough.
- coldpie 5y agoThe fact that they are trying to sell/IPO is pretty strong evidence that they are not profitable, I think. But regardless, I will give them massive props for not just doing the ad thing, which is the last gasp of this style of startup before they finish circling the drain. Lookin' at you, Imgur.
- delecti 5y agoImgur has had ads since a couple months after launch. Nearly 98% of Imgur's lifespan has had ads.
- coldpie 5y agoIn the last ~6 months, Imgur added forced video ads when uploading new images: https://www.resetera.com/threads/hmm-so-we-now-have-to-watch-30-second-ads-just-to-upload-images-to-imgur.338320/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/hmm-so-we-now-have-to-watch... https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/k5lwus/imgur_now_forces_you_to_disable_adblock_to_upload/ https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/k5lwus/imgur... Hilariously, I found this article from about a year before they added those ads: https://digiday.com/marketing/imgur-diversifying-beyond-ad-revenue/ https://digiday.com/marketing/imgur-diversifying-beyond-ad-r... This is what flailing around trying to find a business model looks like. If Imgur was profitable without those ads, they wouldn't be abusing their users like this.
- throwaway_kufu 5y agoI’d slightly revise your description of the scheme from no business model to a intentional no revenue business model allowing for the valuation speculation to run rampant (i.e. at anytime we could stop investing in our growth, then it’s all profits). Of course by the time they go public like say Uber and set multiple records on quarterly losses and the investors drop the bag on the public it becomes obvious they can’t stop spending or the business will go under so instead they will continue accumulating billion dollar plus losses every quarter so by the time the shit hits the fan original founders and investors are on to the next thing and can always say they took a xx billion dollar startup public and that’s when the company lost its culture and the corporate greed ruined it.
- duxup 5y agoAs user's it seems we're addicted to hopping from one unsustainable free product to the next. We don't want to pay. And we're upset when they vanish or change dramatically try to find a way to remain viable financially.
- Varriount 5y agoWhat would the outlook be if Discord was bought by Microsoft?
- ipaddr 5y agoFamily friendly policies and users fleeing.
- PascLeRasc 5y agoDiscord 365 Home Edition, with Lync (64-bit) (Not Responding)
- alpaca128 5y agoAt least on my hardware Skype and Teams are much more responsive than Discord though. And the laptop's coolers get the workout of their lifetime whenever Discord spins up.
- wrenky 5y agoProbably would leave it alone for a while- Much like Git.
- cvs268 5y agoFor the Nth time (not you), Github is NOT git.
- throwaway_kufu 5y agoA valuation based on metrics more closely tied to reality because the owner would actually focus on the viability and sustainability of the product.
- the_duke 5y agoDoubtful, in this case. Microsoft would have bought Discord for the gaming community and pursued tight integration with the XBox ecosystem. Which could have boosted the platform, but probably not in a way that resulted in a lot of direct revenue.
- Analemma_ 5y agoCorporate greed is for sure a problem, but... does Discord even make money? I'm guessing their S-1 will reveal that they are ludicrously unprofitable, and they will actually have to fix that if they go public, corporate greed or no. In general, I try not to fall in love with free products that seem too good to be true, because the party has to come to an end at some point.
- ivraatiems 5y agoBetter than being a hellscape in 6 months-2 years due to forced integration with Teams.
- Ombudsman 5y agoI think Microsoft is smarter than that, look at Github for example, people have largely forgotten it's owned by MSFT. They would have left Discord as a gaming platform and used it's tech in Teams instead. Teams is so behind Discord in all areas except video quality.
- adflux 5y agoWhat fields are that exactly?
- russellendicott 5y agoTeams chat is awful: - Trying to figure out how to do code snippets and inline code is madness. - You can't copy and paste whole conversations. - Integrations/bots are awful and make you realize the whole thing is built on some ancient Sharepoint SOAP API. - Mobile app on Android whacks out frequently and has to do the blinky reload chat 19 times before the screen settles down. A lot of my other gripes are probably due to enterprise issues but I'll mention them anyway: - Can't create my own channels. - can't be on my company Teams on a call and switch to Microsoft's server to talk to a TAM without dropping the call.
- selimthegrim 5y agoHas there been an exodus of talent from Github if they are leveling salaries?
- Rapzid 5y agoProbably an influx of talent. They suddenly started shipping stuff after the acquisition..