Tbh I don't mind proprietary apps, so long as the user experience is good.

I don't mind the ui nudges to buy nitro - the server costs have to come from somewhere - but if discord starts seriously serving ads, I'm gone.

I've been excitedly following the matrix project for years, but I'm in a lot of unique discord servers that would never move short of catastrophe. The network effect is too strong to shake the apathetic. We'll win the long game with matrix, but it might take a while.

jokes on you i got overwhelmed by every channel being split into a gajillion chats anyway

Nah. Discord is the most accessible, if we’re talking about blind folks and accessibility. I tried using Element, and yikes!!! No. Cant read a single convo. In Discord, I can go back as far as necessary till I catch up. Tried other apps, too, and they all do the same thing.

I only ever joined Discord for friends. Leaving would mean losing all friends, not even a select bunch. They're not moving and while some may care that it's upsetting, it's a collective bunch that needs convincing. Friends of friends of friends. People aren't jumping ship for one person to also not have their other friends not jump ship.

Reddit is a community but doesn't have the more casual chat that friends use (well they have it now, but it was never good).

Discord pretty much has to burn bridges like Reddit did before anyone moves.

Time is a flat circle. We’re going back to IRC, boys.

Discord doesn't really block 3rd party apps. Technically, they are against ToS, but unless you're doing something bad, it's seen as okay by the discord staff.

But yes, it's quite the closed ecosystem obviously. There are no 3rd party clients that implement all features, mostly due to the fact that it's all closed source.

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

I really wish there was a selfhosted E2EE chat, video, stream app with client for windows, linux and android. Already tried element but it's a pain to make it work just fine, even when i tried to federate it, it took so much time to get into other communities. Maybe I'm used to simplicity and 'optimization' that discord has but i would like a selfhosted clone tbh. I really dislike the way the discord is taking already. Same as for reddit it's hard to convince ppl to move over and then again scatter everyone to other apps/places. Geez, fck this, please.

I'd love to leave discord, but I know to many people that use it and will not budge on leaving. I am stuck with it.

So unless discord makes a very serious boneheaded mistake and double down on it like Reddit did... I don't see many people leaving.

While I love the sentiment, I have to say leaving Discord was one of the worst choices I ever made, not because Discord is inherently better, but because of the friends on it. I was in a very different state mentally and left without warning, and I regret it everyday, even though I'm back on Discord and some of my friends were willing to accept me, I still get a very intense feeling that what I did was unforgivable and I shouldn't be given this chance to talk with them again. It feels like leaving someone waiting for a high five and returning it months later when the hype is gone... I'm mostly inactive because I feel so wrong and I really don't deserve friends that are so nice. While I made the choice to leave and I knew the consequences, I don't wish anyone else to make that same mistake, leave with confidence, not with a cloudy mindset, worsening depression, and way less friends.

There's not really any good alternative for large communities. The amount of tools available on Discord in the form of bots is so useful, any other platform they move to needs to have that as well.

Do we also have alternatives to Discord?

Element is a great client for matrix. It functions similarly to Discord.