If you're after text, there are a number of options. If you're after group voice, there are a number of options. You could mix and match both, but "where everyone else is" will also likely be a factor in that kind of decision.

If you want both together, then there's probably just Element (Matrix + voice)? Not sure of other options that aren't centralised, where you're the product, or otherwise at obvious risk of enshittifying. (And Element has the smell of the latter to me, but that's another topic).

I've prepared for Discord's inevitable "final straw" moment by setting up a Matrix room and maintaining a self-hosted Mumble server in Docker for my gaming buddies. It's worked when Discord has been down, so I know it works. Yet to convince them to test Element...

Same. I just hope my friend group and by some extension the gaming community chooses something that won't fall into the same pitfal of closed source for profit organizations.

I hope the transition is towards matrix, or something like it.

What genuinely confuses me is who they're finding to buy this shit to begin with.

I've seen so many of these failed "Join our club to score points to get tokens to buy virtual dongles that you can use to get into our more-elite clubs with better points and color tokens" schemes over the last ten years. It's like everyone wants to be Chuck-E-Cheese, nevermind that the company went bankrupt five years ago.

Even if all you care about is profit, it seems like this is an abysmal means of generating it.

The replacement is matrix.

increasingly belligerent chasing of profits.

The word you're looking for is enshittification.

Keep an eye on Revolt.

What's the exchange rate of Discord Orbs to Stanley Nickels?

You couldn't be more wrong.

People actually use the shop. they are spending $10-20 on a profile picture border. Now you are telling them that they can get them for "free"? You bet people will do it. Paid cosmetics have poisoned minds.

Users on reddit and lemmy always seem to think ad-based stuff is going to fail, and then it turns out people in the real world are depressingly accepting of ads. I would bet that this program is more likely to be expanded than canceled.

Mark my words, any free service that hosts images is on the cycle. I saw it happen to Reddit and Imgur

Promising to host everyone's data for free forever is a promise that only a devil at a crossroads can make

Well they changed CEOs a month ago

I warned my friends that Discord is looking to go public. Just wait, it's going to get a lot worse.

You can host your own matrix instance then bridge discord (and everything else from LinkedIn messenger to WhatsApp) to matrix with double puppeting so people won’t even realise you’re not on discord.

Not as feature rich, quite buggy, inherently more private but also less usable.

The above compounds when trying to get the non-techies to use it, because sometimes it doesn’t just work

Only option available is Matrix. It has its problems, but they're being worked on.

Right now it lacks the gaming/voice chat parts of discord - so for an OSS alternative for that part of discord specifically, there's Mumble.

For everything else, Matrix is a good alternative. Just be sure to pick a discord-like client. (E.g. Commet or Cinny)

I don't think Revolt is Fediverse, afaik it's entirely centralized without plans for interop or federation
Please update me if I just didn't find the right reference

Is Revolt federated? I thought it was only FOSS