[rubinlinux]

Surprised no one even mentioned the matrix protocol yet. Its still very rough around the edges, but for an old school IRC person talk of Discord as an alternative just hurts me.

Do I want my community to be completely owned by a corporation, so that all the work we put into the network effect belongs to a company and they can impose/change rules at any moment? Have we learned nothing?

Matrix is the modern IRC alternative, not discord. And in some cases, you can run a bridge between the two, so I use a matrix client as my daily IRC interface -- best of both worlds.

[iotku]

>Matrix is the modern IRC alternative, not discord.

But simultaneously Matrix is not a good enough Discord alternative.

Too much friction, too many issues, and still difficult for non-technical users.

The reason Discord won out is you can just send a link to somebody and they're already on-boarded.

[encom]

>just send a link to somebody and they're already on-boarded

Yes, after you give Discord Inc. your phone number.

[lmm]

Even Discord is too hard for non-technical people. My attempt at a family server has dozens of stale accounts belonging to my parents. As much as it infuriates me, I now understand why WhatsApp is phone-only.