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I don't like Discord as much as the next person, but people use Discord because it's convenient. Why do people prefer Discord to IRC when the latter is free, op

I don't like Discord as much as the next person, but people use Discord because it's convenient. Why do people prefer Discord to IRC when the latter is free, open source, and indexable?

morjom 2y ago
You already answered yourself. Convenience and because your friends are already there or because that one thing hosts its forum there.
dotnet00 2y ago
Flashy UI, channel grouping, custom emoji, server side persistent logs and now the network effect of most likely not having to ask someone to install and learn the ins and outs of another program. Matrix comes the closest to fitting all the same requirements, but I've only ever managed to get one friend to regularly use it, and even then we only use it between ourselves and not to participate in federated matrix servers.
benoliver999 2y ago
If you are offline on IRC you don't get messages. I use a bouncer etc but that's more than the average person should have to worry about. There is https://www.irccloud.com/ https://www.irccloud.com/ but I fear it's too little too late Having to create an account on every IRC server is also not great. I use and love IRC, but I get why centralised services take off. It's just a shame it's a sucky one like discord where everything just goes into a black hole.
- miah_ 2y ago
  Not getting messages when I'm offline is a feature.
  - gravescale 2y ago
    You also don't get messages from when you were offline which means if your group spans multiple timezones and you can only be online for a short time, you can completely miss someone. Yes, sure, bouncers, etc, but they were always a gigantic fiddly hassle compared to "log in, here's what you missed".
  - benoliver999 2y ago
    Nah it's annoying when someone joins and people have to re-explain what we were just talking about
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Like you do for physical gatherings?
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        Yes, if it's relevant, e.g. when running an actual community. But physical gatherings have the advantage of not going on continuously 24/7. My experience with Discord, aa well as communities run by IRC earlier, is that if you log out before work and log in after, you'll spend an hour or more just going through the backlog. Chats are for kids, students and unemployed.
  - poulpy123 2y ago
    you're mistaking messages and notifications.
Suzuran 2y ago
Cheap and easy cross-platform session persistence without the hassle of maintaining a bouncer.
miah_ 2y ago
I use irc primarily, but use Discord for D&D. Voice chat, plus screen sharing. Our DM shares their screen with the map, we use voice to play, and text chat for sharing details about initiative etc. We could probably use mumble and sometime else. The screen sharing part could probably be jitsi. It's just been easier to get everybody playing our game on discord as they already have it.
jlpom 2y ago
Because of real-timeness (you don't need to refresh a webpage, you can see if someone is typing). I am not aware of a forum software that have this feature (I don't know them well, so I can be mistaken). But most of the time you don't need it.
vlan0 2y ago
> but people use Discord because it's convenient. This is it. The brain is wired to expend the least amount of energy possible. Online communities of the past were held up by the few. Those willing to do the work.
CivBase 2y ago
Features. Is there any other tool that offers persistant text, voice, and video chats plus screen sharing? I've gone looking and there is simply no alternative with core feature parity.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  There is, but who wants to use Teams or others for hobbies... In the end there is nothing special about Discord, but it does most things people want well enough.
  - CivBase 2y ago
    I use Teams for work and to my knowledge it does not have persistant voice/video chats. You have to deliberately start a call and invite people. That's not the same and doesn't lend itself near as well to facilitating online hangouts. It makes sense for a business setting, but not so much in a more personal setting.
michaelt 2y ago
> Why do people prefer Discord to IRC when the latter is free, open source, and indexable? I am an IRC lover, it's a classic platform. But my classic IRC platform needs someone to host the server. And it needs NickServ to add on the missing persistent usernames. And it needs ChanServ to ensure opers don't lose control of the channel. And it needs a bot so you can leave messages for offline users. And it needs some sort of third-party image hosting and file hosting. And you need something like irssi+screen if you want to see messages that arrived while you were away. And you need to rename yourself to michaelt_afk when you're away. And you need some way to block spammers and other unwanted bots. And if your channel wants a browser-based option, someone's going to have to figure that out. And you've got to take care not to reveal your IP address for DDOS by griefers. And of course the normal ports might be blocked at work/school/college, maybe you'll need a workaround for that. IRC has solutions for all these problems, but not particularly easy solutions. Discord/Slack/Microsoft Teams have succeeded by fixing all the weaknesses of IRC that we IRC lovers have been working around for decades.

I don't like Discord as much as the next person, but people use Discord because it's convenient. Why do people prefer Discord to IRC when the latter is free, open source, and indexable?

morjom 2y ago

You already answered yourself. Convenience and because your friends are already there or because that one thing hosts its forum there.

dotnet00 2y ago

Flashy UI, channel grouping, custom emoji, server side persistent logs and now the network effect of most likely not having to ask someone to install and learn the ins and outs of another program. Matrix comes the closest to fitting all the same requirements, but I've only ever managed to get one friend to regularly use it, and even then we only use it between ourselves and not to participate in federated matrix servers.

benoliver999 2y ago

If you are offline on IRC you don't get messages. I use a bouncer etc but that's more than the average person should have to worry about. There is https://www.irccloud.com/ https://www.irccloud.com/ but I fear it's too little too late Having to create an account on every IRC server is also not great. I use and love IRC, but I get why centralised services take off. It's just a shame it's a sucky one like discord where everything just goes into a black hole.

miah_ 2y ago
Not getting messages when I'm offline is a feature.
- gravescale 2y ago
  You also don't get messages from when you were offline which means if your group spans multiple timezones and you can only be online for a short time, you can completely miss someone. Yes, sure, bouncers, etc, but they were always a gigantic fiddly hassle compared to "log in, here's what you missed".
- benoliver999 2y ago
  Nah it's annoying when someone joins and people have to re-explain what we were just talking about
  - skydhash 2y ago
    Like you do for physical gatherings?
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Yes, if it's relevant, e.g. when running an actual community. But physical gatherings have the advantage of not going on continuously 24/7. My experience with Discord, aa well as communities run by IRC earlier, is that if you log out before work and log in after, you'll spend an hour or more just going through the backlog. Chats are for kids, students and unemployed.
- poulpy123 2y ago
  you're mistaking messages and notifications.

Suzuran 2y ago

Cheap and easy cross-platform session persistence without the hassle of maintaining a bouncer.

miah_ 2y ago

I use irc primarily, but use Discord for D&D. Voice chat, plus screen sharing. Our DM shares their screen with the map, we use voice to play, and text chat for sharing details about initiative etc. We could probably use mumble and sometime else. The screen sharing part could probably be jitsi. It's just been easier to get everybody playing our game on discord as they already have it.

jlpom 2y ago

Because of real-timeness (you don't need to refresh a webpage, you can see if someone is typing). I am not aware of a forum software that have this feature (I don't know them well, so I can be mistaken). But most of the time you don't need it.

vlan0 2y ago

> but people use Discord because it's convenient. This is it. The brain is wired to expend the least amount of energy possible. Online communities of the past were held up by the few. Those willing to do the work.

CivBase 2y ago

Features. Is there any other tool that offers persistant text, voice, and video chats plus screen sharing? I've gone looking and there is simply no alternative with core feature parity.

Ekaros 2y ago
There is, but who wants to use Teams or others for hobbies... In the end there is nothing special about Discord, but it does most things people want well enough.
- CivBase 2y ago
  I use Teams for work and to my knowledge it does not have persistant voice/video chats. You have to deliberately start a call and invite people. That's not the same and doesn't lend itself near as well to facilitating online hangouts. It makes sense for a business setting, but not so much in a more personal setting.

michaelt 2y ago

> Why do people prefer Discord to IRC when the latter is free, open source, and indexable? I am an IRC lover, it's a classic platform. But my classic IRC platform needs someone to host the server. And it needs NickServ to add on the missing persistent usernames. And it needs ChanServ to ensure opers don't lose control of the channel. And it needs a bot so you can leave messages for offline users. And it needs some sort of third-party image hosting and file hosting. And you need something like irssi+screen if you want to see messages that arrived while you were away. And you need to rename yourself to michaelt_afk when you're away. And you need some way to block spammers and other unwanted bots. And if your channel wants a browser-based option, someone's going to have to figure that out. And you've got to take care not to reveal your IP address for DDOS by griefers. And of course the normal ports might be blocked at work/school/college, maybe you'll need a workaround for that. IRC has solutions for all these problems, but not particularly easy solutions. Discord/Slack/Microsoft Teams have succeeded by fixing all the weaknesses of IRC that we IRC lovers have been working around for decades.