Discord to start showing ads in the coming week after resisting for almost a decade
Discord to start showing ads in the coming week after resisting for almost a decade
In an apparent effort to boost revenues, gaming social media startup Discord plans to implement ads into its free service. The step is expected in the coming days after 9 years of ad-free experience.
I don't think people on this sub use it, but it's great news for us. The worse it gets the likelier people move on.
People aren't going to move on. Some of you really live in a bubble when it comes to this stuff. Users complained about ads on Facebook, reddit, Twitter, YouTube and everything else and no matter how many times you guys declare those services dead the reality is that they are still the default for most. Even in the unlikely scenario that a large amount of users do permanently leave, they won't migrate to the privacy respecting service you want them to.
(Last I checked) From this spreadsheet, Discord is the fourth worst messaging platform in terms of privacy. Now a new row for "Has ads" will have to be added...
Ads are the least of your worries on Discord
Good. Maybe people will finally move on to something else.
Enshittyfication as normal
Revolt is also a great open source alternative that I tried and would recommend
Resisting? It was a clear strategy: use VC money to give away something for free then charge/monetize to give back those investors all the money, with interests
If you don't use Discord for voice much, Matrix has a pretty solid bridges you can use.
Hosting your own Matrix server is suprisingly way easier than I though - got a VM on hertzner for like 5$ a month, and there is an Ansible script that takes care of the setup for you. It's also one of those rare cases where someone made an Ansible script that actually works, instead of you getting stuck in dependency-hell (seriously, fuck npm. Not a single docker or ansible tool that has used it ever worked for me out of the box. Python can get simillarly annoying).
They have a pretty easy to follow guide, and the whole setup took me like 20 minutes. I only edited a few options in config.yml (mostly to add Messenger and Discord bridge), and ran the ansible, and it worked at first try.
So I could at least ditch both messenger and discord apps from my PC and phone, without having to convince anyone to quit their poison - with only issue being that you can't use Discord voice. And that the messenger bridge is still unreliable sometimes, but those are still minor inconviniences in comparison to my deep-seated hate for Meta.
Of course - Meta still gets my chat data and content, same as Discord. But at least they don't get anything else from my phone or PC.
I only use it to play games with 4 other people regularly and another 2-3 people sporadically. When it becomes a pain to use, well move on just like we did with AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Team Speak, and however many others we've used in the past. Something else will come along. It works great for now, but we aren't loyal to it. We're loyal to playing online with each other. I would honestly pay $5 a month for a decent program, should no free one be available, but I'm already cutting out multiple streaming services, satellite radio, and all sorts of other shit because commercials are too annoying.
I wish I had enough time and knowledge to combine mumble and revolt.. That would be the perfect discord replacement.
Actually, I just want 1) gaming voice chat with 2) a shared music bot which 3) my non-tech friends would want to use
Is there any alternative with screen share feature and music bots?
April Fools?
the desktop versions of AdGuard can filter requests from the desktop version of discord
There's also services like adguard DNS and nextDNS that can help cut down on any bullshit like that.
Adblocking needs to be multi-layered just like antivirus protection
Will using the browser version with the usual array of ad-blocks help?
I think the only way to get an open-source Discord is to recreate discord (their backend).
granted it's a slow process but it can pay off if done right. I contribute what little I can to the project, as my Typescript is not the best and Discord knowledge even less.
...And of course I just now finally persuasive my mother to start looking into Discord.
She's a pretty connected Boomer who likes new books, movies and shows and is in desperate need of friends to talk to about her nerdy interests.
But Discord is deciding to inshitify right as she's starting to warm up to the idea of online communities. She probably wouldn't care about things like the username stuff, but Ads? Yeah, eww.
I'm on the verge of quitting after dealing with fucking groomers and nazis in ever server. I've already pulled out of every server and have remained DM-only. As I lose my last few friends my incentives to stay are going to be severely tested by having to deal with advertisements.
The website will ask for a user streaming to do something in-game or play a specific game while others are watching to probably earn something either in-game or in Discord.
I feel this is fine, the "streamer" can decide to do this tasks or not. And can disable receiving the tasks at all in settings.
We need FOSSCORD!
It will be interesting to see if PC ad blockers are able to mitigate them or whether they're going to tunnel them in like FB/Instagram do.
Gotta switch to revolt. My username: super_user_do#0384
The new update is great, it crashes the client anytime I mouse over the loot box announcement or try to watch a video my friend posted.
APRIL FOOLS!!???
No....?
Oh, okay..
This is just Netflix all over again. If you don't want to pay for Nitro, watch ads. If you don't like ads, find the door. I don't get why people normalize freeloading online services and get pissy when they have to pay for what they use. Servers cost money. Pitch in with ads, data, or a subscription.
Otherwise go do your open-source self hosted and P2P programs, they all have the same problem. Reliability.
