>I don't know what kind of weirdass servers you hung out in... Not to be overly critical, but its the very use of the word "hang out" that really highlights wh

>I don't know what kind of weirdass servers you hung out in... Not to be overly critical, but its the very use of the word "hang out" that really highlights what I was discussing. The spaces are designed to be totalizing, in the "real world" you could hang out at a friends house or the park or something, the latter is free and open, and you can come and go as you please. Discord servers, by their very design, are antithetical to that ethos. Like a bad parody of 19th century secret societies, first you must be admitted; then, once in, you are subjected to an immediate system of hierarchy, and potentially higher "inner circle" social spaces. The total control and hierarchization of social life, with widespread tools for monitoring and expulsion, where everything you do or say can be recorded and tracked, is part and parcel of the architecture of Discord. This isn't a private server you or your friends own, its a space designed to extract profit for a mass corporation by keeping you on it as long as possible and subtily encouraging microtransactions with via social pressure: Reddit has the same model. And the longer you stay on Discord, the more of your social life is exclusively on Discord, and the more opportunities arise for Discord to exploit you for profit. It is highly insidious, it is no different in form or structure from any other social media website: even HN suffers in this regard, since it has small incentives to keep you returning and commenting and replying, and passively exposes you to advertisements for various services offered by YC startups. At least here there is something more than just that, but only 4chan achieves an absolutely democratizing end as a place of almost pure excess. But the latter isn't very good for actual discussions, so I come here.