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the damage is already done though. Discord just burned years of goodwill and trust. Im in a few discord communities and while they aren't moving Im not looking

the damage is already done though. Discord just burned years of goodwill and trust. Im in a few discord communities and while they aren't moving Im not looking to join any more right now because of this whole thing.

dcchambers 7mo ago
Discord is a cancer on the open internet anyway. Real time chat? Great. But entire communities, forums, and wikis moving behind the locked walled of Discord has been a disaster for information discovery. Don't replace Discord with a similar alternative. Return to open forums and wikis!
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  Yes. And likewise for all those other walled gardens. I shouldn't need a Facebook or a Twitter account to read what some politician wrote.
- ronsor 7mo ago
  The problem is forum UX on mobile is mediocre, and people have to create an account for each forum. Most people are using mobile devices now, like it or not, so convenience of rich text chat wins out.
- bsza 7mo ago
  I would have agreed 5 years ago, but not this day and age, when AI is raping open source projects and killing platforms like Stack Overflow. We need a safe space from web crawlers and surveillance, and open forums ain't it. (Neither is Discord, but a sufficiently secure alternative might be.)
  - SpaceManNabs 7mo ago
    AI is what??
    - bsza 7mo ago
      https://www.pcmag.com/news/godot-game-engine-is-drowning-in-vibe-coded-ai-slop-contributions https://www.pcmag.com/news/godot-game-engine-is-drowning-in-... https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/overrun-with-ai-slop-curl-scraps-bug-bounties-to-ensure-intact-mental-health/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/overrun-with-ai-slo... https://www.phoronix.com/news/LLVM-Human-In-The-Loop https://www.phoronix.com/news/LLVM-Human-In-The-Loop https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/ https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on... Just off the top of my head, I bet a lot of other repos are going through the same.
      - SpaceManNabs 7mo ago
        why use that specific word though?
        kbelder 7mo ago
        Don't be surprised or shocked to encounter metaphors and hyperbole as you read. It's part of standard English communication.
        SpaceManNabs 7mo ago
        I haven't heard that word used as a metaphor or hyperbole since I stopped playing on call of duty in 2014... Weird that the hacker news community wants to stick to it. Yall need to grow up. Because I know you would not use it as a metaphor or hyperbole at work. Defending it makes you look immature.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  - m4rtink 7mo ago
    Do you really think Discord is not scrapping all the traffic that goes through its service for either their own purposes or to sell data for profit. And if its not doing it now, it will certainly happen once/if it goes bust.
    - bsza 7mo ago
      Have you read my comment?
- ntoskrnl_exe 7mo ago
  You have a point, I've seen a fair share of Github projects where they asked you to join their Discord if you wanted documentation/support/tips etc.
- fullshark 7mo ago
  These communities don't owe the world their information, and attention/adverisement economics destroyed the open internet on its own.
  - CamperBob2 7mo ago
    So they "owe it" to Discord. Got it.
    - fullshark 7mo ago
      That's not what I said or implied.
      - CamperBob2 7mo ago
        But that's the effect. Either Discord gets to lock the information away (even if it currently chooses to leave the gate unlocked), or it's available to anyone who does a web search.
n8cpdx 7mo ago
Can someone explain to me how Discord got so big in the first place, particularly for non-gaming uses? I saw this coming a mile away when folks started ditching slack for Discord - Slack being problematic because a) it was profit-seeking and would use its leverage over your personal data to seek rent and b) it was antithetical to the open web. Discord has the exact same two issues so was obviously not a solution. Why did the internet en masse fall for it again?
- verdverm 7mo ago
  Slack sold out, changed the deal, and threw every small group under the bus. Most of those people ended up on Discord
- rocketpastsix 7mo ago
  As far as I can tell, Discord doesn't delete history so you can join an older discord and scroll back. 99.99% of slacks that are free lose history after some arbitrary timeframe (used to be 10,000 messages, now I think its 90 days). Plus you can connect Discord to your Steam/Playstation/Xbox account, which gamers like.
  - inetknght 7mo ago
    > 99.99% of slacks that are free lose history after some arbitrary timeframe (used to be 10,000 messages, now I think its 90 days). This is exactly the reason cited for several non-gaming discords I'm in.
  - WorldMaker 7mo ago
    Relatedly, the "gamer-oriented" business model of sell cosmetics and subscriptions to every user individually rather than the Slack big enterprise-oriented business model of a central admin paying an entire per-user cost out of pocket was a factor in many of my communities moving from Slack or skipping Slack. It's a lot easier for a small community admin to start for free and find enough "Boosts" from community membership for the nice-to-have server features that cost a bit extra than to foot the entire bill themselves in the hopes that enough users will eventually reimburse them. (It also allows for a hybrid where a community admin centrally pays for some amount of boosts, but doesn't have to pay for all of them.)
baq 7mo ago
> Discord just burned years of goodwill and trust. ...not here, they never had any. it is good tech, but so is the w80 nuclear warhead, the tiger iv (for its time) and the j-35.
chankstein38 7mo ago
I've exported any servers that I run as backups and plan to uninstall if I get an age verification prompt personally.
GuB-42 7mo ago
I think they have been steadily losing their years of goodwill and trust over time. Their client is becoming worse and worse every release, introduced ads, etc... Typical enshittification, it could be worse, but Discord already went from being cool to being tolerable. The age verification thing is just another step on the way down.
m4rtink 7mo ago
Isn't it a good thing ? It makes clearly marks companies like Persona dangerous and toxic enough to hopefully makes an example that prevents others from working with them.

dcchambers 7mo ago

Discord is a cancer on the open internet anyway. Real time chat? Great. But entire communities, forums, and wikis moving behind the locked walled of Discord has been a disaster for information discovery. Don't replace Discord with a similar alternative. Return to open forums and wikis!

jacquesm 7mo ago
Yes. And likewise for all those other walled gardens. I shouldn't need a Facebook or a Twitter account to read what some politician wrote.
ronsor 7mo ago
The problem is forum UX on mobile is mediocre, and people have to create an account for each forum. Most people are using mobile devices now, like it or not, so convenience of rich text chat wins out.
bsza 7mo ago
I would have agreed 5 years ago, but not this day and age, when AI is raping open source projects and killing platforms like Stack Overflow. We need a safe space from web crawlers and surveillance, and open forums ain't it. (Neither is Discord, but a sufficiently secure alternative might be.)
- SpaceManNabs 7mo ago
  AI is what??
  - bsza 7mo ago
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/godot-game-engine-is-drowning-in-vibe-coded-ai-slop-contributions https://www.pcmag.com/news/godot-game-engine-is-drowning-in-... https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/overrun-with-ai-slop-curl-scraps-bug-bounties-to-ensure-intact-mental-health/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/overrun-with-ai-slo... https://www.phoronix.com/news/LLVM-Human-In-The-Loop https://www.phoronix.com/news/LLVM-Human-In-The-Loop https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/ https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on... Just off the top of my head, I bet a lot of other repos are going through the same.
    - SpaceManNabs 7mo ago
      why use that specific word though?
      - kbelder 7mo ago
        Don't be surprised or shocked to encounter metaphors and hyperbole as you read. It's part of standard English communication.
        SpaceManNabs 7mo ago
        I haven't heard that word used as a metaphor or hyperbole since I stopped playing on call of duty in 2014... Weird that the hacker news community wants to stick to it. Yall need to grow up. Because I know you would not use it as a metaphor or hyperbole at work. Defending it makes you look immature.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- m4rtink 7mo ago
  Do you really think Discord is not scrapping all the traffic that goes through its service for either their own purposes or to sell data for profit. And if its not doing it now, it will certainly happen once/if it goes bust.
  - bsza 7mo ago
    Have you read my comment?
ntoskrnl_exe 7mo ago
You have a point, I've seen a fair share of Github projects where they asked you to join their Discord if you wanted documentation/support/tips etc.
fullshark 7mo ago
These communities don't owe the world their information, and attention/adverisement economics destroyed the open internet on its own.
- CamperBob2 7mo ago
  So they "owe it" to Discord. Got it.
  - fullshark 7mo ago
    That's not what I said or implied.
    - CamperBob2 7mo ago
      But that's the effect. Either Discord gets to lock the information away (even if it currently chooses to leave the gate unlocked), or it's available to anyone who does a web search.

n8cpdx 7mo ago

Can someone explain to me how Discord got so big in the first place, particularly for non-gaming uses? I saw this coming a mile away when folks started ditching slack for Discord - Slack being problematic because a) it was profit-seeking and would use its leverage over your personal data to seek rent and b) it was antithetical to the open web. Discord has the exact same two issues so was obviously not a solution. Why did the internet en masse fall for it again?

verdverm 7mo ago
Slack sold out, changed the deal, and threw every small group under the bus. Most of those people ended up on Discord
rocketpastsix 7mo ago
As far as I can tell, Discord doesn't delete history so you can join an older discord and scroll back. 99.99% of slacks that are free lose history after some arbitrary timeframe (used to be 10,000 messages, now I think its 90 days). Plus you can connect Discord to your Steam/Playstation/Xbox account, which gamers like.
- inetknght 7mo ago
  > 99.99% of slacks that are free lose history after some arbitrary timeframe (used to be 10,000 messages, now I think its 90 days). This is exactly the reason cited for several non-gaming discords I'm in.
- WorldMaker 7mo ago
  Relatedly, the "gamer-oriented" business model of sell cosmetics and subscriptions to every user individually rather than the Slack big enterprise-oriented business model of a central admin paying an entire per-user cost out of pocket was a factor in many of my communities moving from Slack or skipping Slack. It's a lot easier for a small community admin to start for free and find enough "Boosts" from community membership for the nice-to-have server features that cost a bit extra than to foot the entire bill themselves in the hopes that enough users will eventually reimburse them. (It also allows for a hybrid where a community admin centrally pays for some amount of boosts, but doesn't have to pay for all of them.)

baq 7mo ago

> Discord just burned years of goodwill and trust. ...not here, they never had any. it is good tech, but so is the w80 nuclear warhead, the tiger iv (for its time) and the j-35.

chankstein38 7mo ago

I've exported any servers that I run as backups and plan to uninstall if I get an age verification prompt personally.

GuB-42 7mo ago

I think they have been steadily losing their years of goodwill and trust over time. Their client is becoming worse and worse every release, introduced ads, etc... Typical enshittification, it could be worse, but Discord already went from being cool to being tolerable. The age verification thing is just another step on the way down.

m4rtink 7mo ago

Isn't it a good thing ? It makes clearly marks companies like Persona dangerous and toxic enough to hopefully makes an example that prevents others from working with them.