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It is absolutely wild to me that Discord put up with this at all - but it's not surprising that they would want to change this. It also makes me wonder if Disco

It is absolutely wild to me that Discord put up with this at all - but it's not surprising that they would want to change this. It also makes me wonder if Discord could add permanent image hosting to their list of Nitro benefits. I do think they're in prime position to become a service hub for the Very Online but not very technical.

ehnto 3y ago
I agree and hadn't really considered the Very Online but not technical as a cohort before. Perhaps in contrast to people who are online but not "online natives". Discord has become a defacto platform for online native communities, in the same way many of us treated IRC. It's really the same atmosphere, any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join.
- treyd 3y ago
  > any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join. If we're still on IRC then we mostly would clearly have an objection to using discord for the very many legitimate reasons to object to it, such as the mass data collection, phone number requirements for many users, lack of control / selfhosting capability, or just general requirement to use (very heavy) nonlibre software to access it.
  - personjerry 3y ago
    why would being on IRC be synonymous with any of that? maybe people on IRC just want to hang out and chat with people?
    - meiraleal 3y ago
      That's what IRC was originally for. Later, it took on a counterculture vibe. Now, it's mostly nostalgia for older folks.
    - prophesi 3y ago
      This is a very contentious topic but looking into the relatively recent Freenode vs Librem.chat debacle I think signifies how important privacy is to the common IRC user.
      - e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
        I don't think that's the right conclusion to draw at all from the Freenode debacle. A pretty significant amount of the channels stayed on Freenode after Andrew's takeover, until Andrew kicked them off himself with the mass Libera purge. There were many communities still on a wait-and-see approach -- at least until Andrew was revealed to be semi-insane (Emperor of Korea, digital territory, alt-right conspiracies, etc). Yes, the open source privacy crowd is a big chunk, but there were just as many social communities. Don't you remember the olden days of sex channels and all their drama? The roleplay, alt history, sci-fi, and just general random niche hobbies that populated the IRC landscape. IRC was, above all, a social space, it just so happens that many of these communities died or migrated to discord over time. Those that remain are those who are most attached to privacy/open source/etc, all the rest are gone.
      - lolinder 3y ago
        I don't remember privacy being a significant part of the discussion about the Freenode takeover and the subsequent founding of Libera.chat. My memory is that the hostile takeover was a big problem for some, and the majority of the exodus happened when Andrew went crazy and started hijacking channels and banning people en masse.
        sScTE9qEMCxEk34 3y ago
        Privacy was an enormous part of the argument for even starting Libera. > I believe that his intentions are malicious, and that he should under no circumstances gain control over the network, nor access to its user data. Just from the first "explainer" I remember (https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af497409/53beb33570025020c3e7efa2b80dc936bc5b02fe https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af4...)
  - burnished 3y ago
    At the end of the day its just a chat protocol, not a lifestyle.
    - axus 3y ago
      The Medium is the Message.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
  As an ex heavy IRC user, I couldn’t possibly disagree more with this. Not even for the same “free! libre!” reasons as the other replier. It is just at its core still a gamer chat platform heavily misappropriated for other purposes, with a UX that will spare no opportunity to make you aware of that.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I also feel people treated irc much more ephemeral, important things were in a forum post or a bot. Discord is just treated as the sum repository of all for way too many people.
    - MrVandemar 3y ago
      > Discord is just treated as the sum repository of all for way too many people. The barrier of entry of asking and answering questions on a Discord is very low. Setting up a forum, that's needs a bit of effort, not to mention hosting, and on-going headache of spam and liability. I mean, I'm really interested in Audio Description, but there is no forum for discussing the nuts and bolts, issues, research, advocacy etc. Conversely there are AD groups on Twitter, Facebook, Linkd In, Discord and a few more besides.
    - ehnto 3y ago
      I guess it could be treated that way, but it is just a chat network to me and many. I don't expect to scroll back to infinity and find old messages. On IRC of course, you got X amount of history when you logged on, and that was what you worked with. It does feel a lot more ephemeral, more like a real conversation.
  - burnished 3y ago
    How do you reckon? For contrast I've gotten a lot of use out of it for connecting with various topic focused communities and I've seen people do neat things with it. The python server manages to offer an awful lot of surprisingly high quality tutoring, all things considered, and a big part of it is through the automation they've built in via bots. Oh! And I found a server focused on electronics when I was looking for help repairing a damaged TV that had knowledge resources the likes of which I rarely see anymore. In all that I never felt like the experience was hampered by discord's association with gaming. Honestly it felt like a chat client that wanted to be used - if you want to start using IRC as a newb today you first have to pay obeisance and perform the ritual stumbling through. Discord doesn't (or did not as of a few years ago) even need an account to get started, just type a handle and go.
- throwanem 3y ago
  Just in time for the rugpull that became inevitable the day money stopped being free? No thank you.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    ZIRP rules everything around me. Ruled… and hopefully not returning too soon.
    - throwanem 3y ago
      Not that I don't agree, but that doesn't make it pleasant to live through a titanomachy.
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        A pleasant wasn’t an option with ZIRP. Here is the option though… we ignore the titans above us, the ones that desperately need us. See some of them fall; and hopefully they shrink small enough were we aren’t craning our necks so much. Or, we continue to pretend that everything is fine and keep praying and sacrificing (printing money) and pretend that will just keep working. ZIRP was a mistake. Better to rip the bandaid off now. But… for what it’s worth, I think it will lead to war. Actual war, not this proxy stuff. We’re too far in and owe China too much. There needs to be some debt reset because “paying it off” isn’t a thing.
        throwanem 3y ago
        Good grief. Here I thought I was all doom and gloom today...
        SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        If you don’t see war coming, you haven’t read enough history.
        3y ago
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  I’ve done it, and found myself back in the middle of wars vim vs emacs and arch vs all and slack vs all, I agree it was the same on IRC, but as someone who has lived through it while in middle schoo, I have no desire to go through it again ^^
- Gormo 3y ago
  Or just stick with IRC and avoid Discord entirely.
  - ehnto 3y ago
    Could do, I don't find the communities I want to join have IRC though. I am not saying Discord is better, or you should move. More like, if you gave up IRC decades ago, but want to try some new communities, discord chats are close enough to be fun.
Algent 3y ago
They seem to want to money beyond Nitro right now despite it being very pricy (100€/year right now for non classic one). They just added very basic paid animated frames sold for 10€ each and with a crappy discount for Nitro users.
herpdyderp 3y ago
I really wish they would add useful features to Nitro. I want to pay for Discord Nitro, but the features they keep adding to it actually actively annoy me and I don't want them. Server boosting seemed interesting but it ends up being extremely ephemeral.
- RulerOf 3y ago
  I've never canceled a service so fast in my life. I signed up for the trial and hop into a direct call. The other participant shared his screen, and the video looks like hot garbage. High fidelity options buried behind notices that the other user needs Nitro. If I pay for the service, my UX should improve. It did not. No thanks.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Unfortunately the very-online-but-not-very-technical are a hard demographic to monetize, maybe more so than the very-online-and-very-technical.
- lmm 3y ago
  Disagree. The very technical have a "the cobbler's children go barefoot" effect where they're unwilling to pay for anything. The non-technical are much more likely to pay $5/month for a program they use.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Under normal conditions, I'd agree, but the Very Online (But Non Technical) specifically have a chip on their shoulder about not wanting to pay for online services, even at a fair value.
otis_inf 3y ago
I'd happily pay for such an image hosting. Our gallery site Hall of Framed (https://framedsc.com/HallOfFramed/ https://framedsc.com/HallOfFramed/) with the best virtual photography shots from our Discord community is hosted this way (json file with the urls in a github repo, updated by a bot, the site is hosted on github pages). We directly pull the shots from discord, but we now have to refactor the site so the images are hosted elsewhere. This poses a problem as the amount of shots is quite large... We have a channel where users post their shots, and the bot basically harvests the links of the shots which have a high amount of votes. So currently no re-hosting of images occurs. I can image tho why Discord does this. Our gallery is likely not visited a lot, but I can imagine high profile files pulled from discord channels like pirated software/malware etc. are a big problem. The route to the server / channel where the files are coming from isn't known, only to discord

ehnto 3y ago

I agree and hadn't really considered the Very Online but not technical as a cohort before. Perhaps in contrast to people who are online but not "online natives". Discord has become a defacto platform for online native communities, in the same way many of us treated IRC. It's really the same atmosphere, any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join.

treyd 3y ago
> any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join. If we're still on IRC then we mostly would clearly have an objection to using discord for the very many legitimate reasons to object to it, such as the mass data collection, phone number requirements for many users, lack of control / selfhosting capability, or just general requirement to use (very heavy) nonlibre software to access it.
- personjerry 3y ago
  why would being on IRC be synonymous with any of that? maybe people on IRC just want to hang out and chat with people?
  - meiraleal 3y ago
    That's what IRC was originally for. Later, it took on a counterculture vibe. Now, it's mostly nostalgia for older folks.
  - prophesi 3y ago
    This is a very contentious topic but looking into the relatively recent Freenode vs Librem.chat debacle I think signifies how important privacy is to the common IRC user.
    - e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
      I don't think that's the right conclusion to draw at all from the Freenode debacle. A pretty significant amount of the channels stayed on Freenode after Andrew's takeover, until Andrew kicked them off himself with the mass Libera purge. There were many communities still on a wait-and-see approach -- at least until Andrew was revealed to be semi-insane (Emperor of Korea, digital territory, alt-right conspiracies, etc). Yes, the open source privacy crowd is a big chunk, but there were just as many social communities. Don't you remember the olden days of sex channels and all their drama? The roleplay, alt history, sci-fi, and just general random niche hobbies that populated the IRC landscape. IRC was, above all, a social space, it just so happens that many of these communities died or migrated to discord over time. Those that remain are those who are most attached to privacy/open source/etc, all the rest are gone.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      I don't remember privacy being a significant part of the discussion about the Freenode takeover and the subsequent founding of Libera.chat. My memory is that the hostile takeover was a big problem for some, and the majority of the exodus happened when Andrew went crazy and started hijacking channels and banning people en masse.
      - sScTE9qEMCxEk34 3y ago
        Privacy was an enormous part of the argument for even starting Libera. > I believe that his intentions are malicious, and that he should under no circumstances gain control over the network, nor access to its user data. Just from the first "explainer" I remember (https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af497409/53beb33570025020c3e7efa2b80dc936bc5b02fe https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af4...)
- burnished 3y ago
  At the end of the day its just a chat protocol, not a lifestyle.
  - axus 3y ago
    The Medium is the Message.
tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
As an ex heavy IRC user, I couldn’t possibly disagree more with this. Not even for the same “free! libre!” reasons as the other replier. It is just at its core still a gamer chat platform heavily misappropriated for other purposes, with a UX that will spare no opportunity to make you aware of that.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I also feel people treated irc much more ephemeral, important things were in a forum post or a bot. Discord is just treated as the sum repository of all for way too many people.
  - MrVandemar 3y ago
    > Discord is just treated as the sum repository of all for way too many people. The barrier of entry of asking and answering questions on a Discord is very low. Setting up a forum, that's needs a bit of effort, not to mention hosting, and on-going headache of spam and liability. I mean, I'm really interested in Audio Description, but there is no forum for discussing the nuts and bolts, issues, research, advocacy etc. Conversely there are AD groups on Twitter, Facebook, Linkd In, Discord and a few more besides.
  - ehnto 3y ago
    I guess it could be treated that way, but it is just a chat network to me and many. I don't expect to scroll back to infinity and find old messages. On IRC of course, you got X amount of history when you logged on, and that was what you worked with. It does feel a lot more ephemeral, more like a real conversation.
- burnished 3y ago
  How do you reckon? For contrast I've gotten a lot of use out of it for connecting with various topic focused communities and I've seen people do neat things with it. The python server manages to offer an awful lot of surprisingly high quality tutoring, all things considered, and a big part of it is through the automation they've built in via bots. Oh! And I found a server focused on electronics when I was looking for help repairing a damaged TV that had knowledge resources the likes of which I rarely see anymore. In all that I never felt like the experience was hampered by discord's association with gaming. Honestly it felt like a chat client that wanted to be used - if you want to start using IRC as a newb today you first have to pay obeisance and perform the ritual stumbling through. Discord doesn't (or did not as of a few years ago) even need an account to get started, just type a handle and go.
throwanem 3y ago
Just in time for the rugpull that became inevitable the day money stopped being free? No thank you.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  ZIRP rules everything around me. Ruled… and hopefully not returning too soon.
  - throwanem 3y ago
    Not that I don't agree, but that doesn't make it pleasant to live through a titanomachy.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      A pleasant wasn’t an option with ZIRP. Here is the option though… we ignore the titans above us, the ones that desperately need us. See some of them fall; and hopefully they shrink small enough were we aren’t craning our necks so much. Or, we continue to pretend that everything is fine and keep praying and sacrificing (printing money) and pretend that will just keep working. ZIRP was a mistake. Better to rip the bandaid off now. But… for what it’s worth, I think it will lead to war. Actual war, not this proxy stuff. We’re too far in and owe China too much. There needs to be some debt reset because “paying it off” isn’t a thing.
      - throwanem 3y ago
        Good grief. Here I thought I was all doom and gloom today...
        SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        If you don’t see war coming, you haven’t read enough history.
        3y ago
lnxg33k1 3y ago
I’ve done it, and found myself back in the middle of wars vim vs emacs and arch vs all and slack vs all, I agree it was the same on IRC, but as someone who has lived through it while in middle schoo, I have no desire to go through it again ^^
Gormo 3y ago
Or just stick with IRC and avoid Discord entirely.
- ehnto 3y ago
  Could do, I don't find the communities I want to join have IRC though. I am not saying Discord is better, or you should move. More like, if you gave up IRC decades ago, but want to try some new communities, discord chats are close enough to be fun.

Algent 3y ago

They seem to want to money beyond Nitro right now despite it being very pricy (100€/year right now for non classic one). They just added very basic paid animated frames sold for 10€ each and with a crappy discount for Nitro users.

herpdyderp 3y ago

I really wish they would add useful features to Nitro. I want to pay for Discord Nitro, but the features they keep adding to it actually actively annoy me and I don't want them. Server boosting seemed interesting but it ends up being extremely ephemeral.

RulerOf 3y ago
I've never canceled a service so fast in my life. I signed up for the trial and hop into a direct call. The other participant shared his screen, and the video looks like hot garbage. High fidelity options buried behind notices that the other user needs Nitro. If I pay for the service, my UX should improve. It did not. No thanks.

spondylosaurus 3y ago

Unfortunately the very-online-but-not-very-technical are a hard demographic to monetize, maybe more so than the very-online-and-very-technical.

lmm 3y ago
Disagree. The very technical have a "the cobbler's children go barefoot" effect where they're unwilling to pay for anything. The non-technical are much more likely to pay $5/month for a program they use.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Under normal conditions, I'd agree, but the Very Online (But Non Technical) specifically have a chip on their shoulder about not wanting to pay for online services, even at a fair value.

otis_inf 3y ago

I'd happily pay for such an image hosting. Our gallery site Hall of Framed (https://framedsc.com/HallOfFramed/ https://framedsc.com/HallOfFramed/) with the best virtual photography shots from our Discord community is hosted this way (json file with the urls in a github repo, updated by a bot, the site is hosted on github pages). We directly pull the shots from discord, but we now have to refactor the site so the images are hosted elsewhere. This poses a problem as the amount of shots is quite large... We have a channel where users post their shots, and the bot basically harvests the links of the shots which have a high amount of votes. So currently no re-hosting of images occurs. I can image tho why Discord does this. Our gallery is likely not visited a lot, but I can imagine high profile files pulled from discord channels like pirated software/malware etc. are a big problem. The route to the server / channel where the files are coming from isn't known, only to discord