6 ms·

The whole thing with freenode-> libera and now this has been a shitshow to say the least. I am glad some communities are moving to discord where things are stab

by _8j50 3y ago

The whole thing with freenode-> libera and now this has been a shitshow to say the least. I am glad some communities are moving to discord where things are stable and reliable. Instead of implementing proper registration process for example, libera bans ip addresses from tor and vpns unless you auth first and you have to register with an email and an ip they like. I have many criticisms of matrix/element but in this case it looks like yet another libera complaint that is at issue, not really matrix's fault I think. The only thing I'll say about matrix is they have a lot of cool features but a smooth/fast experience like discord is the only thing they are missing to compete there but aside from philosophy I see no reason to avoid discord unless I want to operare a server instance. To me it's like webmail, I don't care if gmail or proronmail are opensource as much as I care about their security and reliability. I mean, I gotta applaud all the folks that worked on matrix clients, but there is still much left to be desired, I wish I could help in some way.

smlavine 3y ago
Well, stable for now. Give Discord another two decades to figure itself out and see what happens. When it hits the fan, there won't be a "Discord 2" right next door that everyone can migrate to by changing a URL.
- izzydata 3y ago
  I am patiently waiting for Discord to be sold to some corporation such as Microsoft so we can all move on to the next big thing. I wonder what it will be. Probably not Matrix, but definitely something.
  - Syonyk 3y ago
    Meanwhile, IRC remains there, working, independent of big companies, and low enough resourced that you can host it without too much trouble on very modest hardware and bandwidth requirements. It's the turtle: https://xkcd.com/889/ https://xkcd.com/889/
  - slimsag 3y ago
    What is the next big thing after Microsoft bought GitHub, by that logic? ..or are we all in this thread just not talking about GitHub, it's a necessary evil, etc.?
    - izzydata 3y ago
      I don't think it is the Microsoft part or that anything becomes evil merely by changing hands. Just that the network effect of chat clients or social media platforms in general is so finicky that changing hands might be enough to cause some splintering of people off to the next thing. I feel like it is getting longer and longer between the next biggest social media, but there has been a lot of chat clients over the past 2 decades. I don't think many people have any company loyalty in this market. The main thing people care about is that the people they want to chat with are already there. If people start moving to something new for whatever reason then everyone else will likely follow.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      You say that as if MS buying GitHub, and the Copilot training data stuff hasn't driven all sorts of people to alternatives like Gitlab or self-hosted solutions like forgejo.
      - slimsag 3y ago
        I literally have no idea what forgejo is, I do not think most people have heard of it. Gitlab's reported growth numbers are down year-over-year. Meanwhile GitHub reached its user growth target of 100M developers an entire year ahead of schedule. I do not believe that any large portion of people are migrating to GitHub alternatives. Most people like / are excited by Copilot, not the other way around.
  - sverona 3y ago
    I watched your old, old SM3.9 videos as a child. I'm sitting in an Etterna Discord channel right now wishing I had the wherewithal to write a 3rd party Rust client. What serendipity. Hope you're well.
    - izzydata 3y ago
      Very strange, but hello. I am alive and well. I hope you find the motivation or determination to complete your task.
Syonyk 3y ago
The centralized mess of Discord is neither stable, nor reliable, nor lightweight to access, and it's going to bite a lot of communities in the rear end, very hard, at some point down the road. The history of "convenient, free to use tech" like Discord is "Someone buys it and tries to turn a profit, and squeezes the life out of it." IRC is a "fully mature technology" at this point in the internet. It just works. I believe a number of tech companies keep IRC servers around for the "Everything but TCP/IP has gone down" emergency communications technology. But it's fine. The filter of IRC is part of what makes it worth it these days to use. It's the anti-Reddit.
- jeltz 3y ago
  I agree with the first part but IRC in no way just works. Maybe after all seers and clients support IRCv3, but right now it does not just work.
  - Syonyk 3y ago
    The majority of my life spent on IRC argues "It works just fine, the way it is." I use a znc bouncer these days because my home ISP is less than reliable some months (I consider "cybering" a channel to be quite rude and try to avoid it at all costs), but I've run that on free tier VM instances before with no trouble, and if you don't have one, it's no big deal for the most part. I'm connected to about half a dozen servers, some major, some "a dozen user backwaters servers," and it's easily the bulk of my "not with people I know directly" communications, just as it's been for literally the past few decades of my life.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      I am with you with IRC experience, but the definition of "works well" is dynamic. These days it means secure and easily accesible from a browser and no "trust me bro" irc server ops lol. I love IRC, the mess that exists today is a result of e2ee being implemented at the application layer instead of transport or session. But much like email, you have to let go of nostalgia. If the horse been dead for 20 years, dismount! I had the same opinion as you but for better or worse I find myself changing my opinion as a result of new experiences. I have a million things i need to do, fighting with a chat client for security or privacy or basic features isn't one of them. Anecdotally, I have been burned by irc operators and clients in several ways over the years. Be wary when trusting strangers!
anthk 3y ago
- Discord - Reliable Oh, dear fools...
patmorgan23 3y ago
No. IRC is a protocol. Discord is a platform. Platforms always die. Protocols can live forever.
immibis 3y ago
Discord does exactly the same, except you still can't use a VPN/Tor once you make an account, and you need a phone number as well as an email address.

by _8j50 3y ago

smlavine 3y ago

Well, stable for now. Give Discord another two decades to figure itself out and see what happens. When it hits the fan, there won't be a "Discord 2" right next door that everyone can migrate to by changing a URL.

izzydata 3y ago
I am patiently waiting for Discord to be sold to some corporation such as Microsoft so we can all move on to the next big thing. I wonder what it will be. Probably not Matrix, but definitely something.
- Syonyk 3y ago
  Meanwhile, IRC remains there, working, independent of big companies, and low enough resourced that you can host it without too much trouble on very modest hardware and bandwidth requirements. It's the turtle: https://xkcd.com/889/ https://xkcd.com/889/
- slimsag 3y ago
  What is the next big thing after Microsoft bought GitHub, by that logic? ..or are we all in this thread just not talking about GitHub, it's a necessary evil, etc.?
  - izzydata 3y ago
    I don't think it is the Microsoft part or that anything becomes evil merely by changing hands. Just that the network effect of chat clients or social media platforms in general is so finicky that changing hands might be enough to cause some splintering of people off to the next thing. I feel like it is getting longer and longer between the next biggest social media, but there has been a lot of chat clients over the past 2 decades. I don't think many people have any company loyalty in this market. The main thing people care about is that the people they want to chat with are already there. If people start moving to something new for whatever reason then everyone else will likely follow.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    You say that as if MS buying GitHub, and the Copilot training data stuff hasn't driven all sorts of people to alternatives like Gitlab or self-hosted solutions like forgejo.
    - slimsag 3y ago
      I literally have no idea what forgejo is, I do not think most people have heard of it. Gitlab's reported growth numbers are down year-over-year. Meanwhile GitHub reached its user growth target of 100M developers an entire year ahead of schedule. I do not believe that any large portion of people are migrating to GitHub alternatives. Most people like / are excited by Copilot, not the other way around.
- sverona 3y ago
  I watched your old, old SM3.9 videos as a child. I'm sitting in an Etterna Discord channel right now wishing I had the wherewithal to write a 3rd party Rust client. What serendipity. Hope you're well.
  - izzydata 3y ago
    Very strange, but hello. I am alive and well. I hope you find the motivation or determination to complete your task.

Syonyk 3y ago

The centralized mess of Discord is neither stable, nor reliable, nor lightweight to access, and it's going to bite a lot of communities in the rear end, very hard, at some point down the road. The history of "convenient, free to use tech" like Discord is "Someone buys it and tries to turn a profit, and squeezes the life out of it." IRC is a "fully mature technology" at this point in the internet. It just works. I believe a number of tech companies keep IRC servers around for the "Everything but TCP/IP has gone down" emergency communications technology. But it's fine. The filter of IRC is part of what makes it worth it these days to use. It's the anti-Reddit.

jeltz 3y ago
I agree with the first part but IRC in no way just works. Maybe after all seers and clients support IRCv3, but right now it does not just work.
- Syonyk 3y ago
  The majority of my life spent on IRC argues "It works just fine, the way it is." I use a znc bouncer these days because my home ISP is less than reliable some months (I consider "cybering" a channel to be quite rude and try to avoid it at all costs), but I've run that on free tier VM instances before with no trouble, and if you don't have one, it's no big deal for the most part. I'm connected to about half a dozen servers, some major, some "a dozen user backwaters servers," and it's easily the bulk of my "not with people I know directly" communications, just as it's been for literally the past few decades of my life.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    I am with you with IRC experience, but the definition of "works well" is dynamic. These days it means secure and easily accesible from a browser and no "trust me bro" irc server ops lol. I love IRC, the mess that exists today is a result of e2ee being implemented at the application layer instead of transport or session. But much like email, you have to let go of nostalgia. If the horse been dead for 20 years, dismount! I had the same opinion as you but for better or worse I find myself changing my opinion as a result of new experiences. I have a million things i need to do, fighting with a chat client for security or privacy or basic features isn't one of them. Anecdotally, I have been burned by irc operators and clients in several ways over the years. Be wary when trusting strangers!

anthk 3y ago

- Discord - Reliable Oh, dear fools...

patmorgan23 3y ago

No. IRC is a protocol. Discord is a platform. Platforms always die. Protocols can live forever.

immibis 3y ago

Discord does exactly the same, except you still can't use a VPN/Tor once you make an account, and you need a phone number as well as an email address.