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It's not like you couldn't create an IRC-client with better UI than discord. Not as many features, but whatever strength discord has it is not UI. Email really

by tjoff 4mo ago

It's not like you couldn't create an IRC-client with better UI than discord. Not as many features, but whatever strength discord has it is not UI. Email really could have been great, but html and bad actors have made it so much worse than it needs to be.

pmontra 4mo ago
Email is OK. The point is that most conversations moved to other media (mainly chats) and so 90% of my mail is notifications, 9% is newsletters, 1% are real messages. They used to be 99%.
- dariusj18 4mo ago
  I really wish Google's Wave went somewhere. It was the real solution.
  - esafak 4mo ago
    Which feature did you like most?
- em-bee 4mo ago
  try deltachat. it's essentially a chat client with all the features you would expect but using SMTP as the protocol.
roenxi 4mo ago
I'd guess the important feature for Discord is it is easier for the administrators to get hosted and online, but "you could create a client with a better UI than discord" is a terrible line of argument. People could do lots of things in the OSS world and they don't. I can't recall any IRC client that I have found as easy to use as the Discord client except - ironically given the topic - ChatZilla which died off years ago because Mozilla decided that extensions were more of a 2000s technology than something they wanted to support.
crote 4mo ago
In practice "better UI" would mean things like being able to trivially share files and images, or quote/link a specific message, or even making it easier to distinguish between users with similar nicks via their profile pictures. And those UI improvements are actually features which are integral to its protocol, so they can't easily be bolted on by a custom IRC client in a backwards-compatible way. Literally every single modern chat platform has support for stuff like that, and for a reason. Discord became popular because it combined those modern chat features with the ability for every community to create its own private little "server" - while at the same time making it trivial to participate in multiple "servers" at once.
- hnlmorg 4mo ago
  Quoting/linking is a client feature, not a server one. IRC servers do also support profiles. I think the real “issue” with IRC is that its users generally prefer the minimal UI. So there isn’t an high enough demand to make prettier UIs. But there are web clients that are a little less basic. For what it’s worth, I’m in that minimal camp too. I wish I could still connect Slack to IRC.
amatecha 4mo ago
indeed, there is https://www.irccloud.com https://www.irccloud.com which is quite excellent!
aboardRat4 4mo ago
>It's not like you couldn't create an IRC-client with better UI than discord No, you cannot. You cannot, because you need a team for this, and they need salaries, and unless you push ads into people's throats, there won't be any.

by tjoff 4mo ago

pmontra 4mo ago

Email is OK. The point is that most conversations moved to other media (mainly chats) and so 90% of my mail is notifications, 9% is newsletters, 1% are real messages. They used to be 99%.

dariusj18 4mo ago
I really wish Google's Wave went somewhere. It was the real solution.
- esafak 4mo ago
  Which feature did you like most?
em-bee 4mo ago
try deltachat. it's essentially a chat client with all the features you would expect but using SMTP as the protocol.

roenxi 4mo ago

I'd guess the important feature for Discord is it is easier for the administrators to get hosted and online, but "you could create a client with a better UI than discord" is a terrible line of argument. People could do lots of things in the OSS world and they don't. I can't recall any IRC client that I have found as easy to use as the Discord client except - ironically given the topic - ChatZilla which died off years ago because Mozilla decided that extensions were more of a 2000s technology than something they wanted to support.

crote 4mo ago

In practice "better UI" would mean things like being able to trivially share files and images, or quote/link a specific message, or even making it easier to distinguish between users with similar nicks via their profile pictures. And those UI improvements are actually features which are integral to its protocol, so they can't easily be bolted on by a custom IRC client in a backwards-compatible way. Literally every single modern chat platform has support for stuff like that, and for a reason. Discord became popular because it combined those modern chat features with the ability for every community to create its own private little "server" - while at the same time making it trivial to participate in multiple "servers" at once.

hnlmorg 4mo ago
Quoting/linking is a client feature, not a server one. IRC servers do also support profiles. I think the real “issue” with IRC is that its users generally prefer the minimal UI. So there isn’t an high enough demand to make prettier UIs. But there are web clients that are a little less basic. For what it’s worth, I’m in that minimal camp too. I wish I could still connect Slack to IRC.

amatecha 4mo ago

indeed, there is https://www.irccloud.com https://www.irccloud.com which is quite excellent!

aboardRat4 4mo ago

>It's not like you couldn't create an IRC-client with better UI than discord No, you cannot. You cannot, because you need a team for this, and they need salaries, and unless you push ads into people's throats, there won't be any.