This article is two years old, and perhaps discord have improved their accessibility, since this user find it more accessible then matrix. Yes, it’s a single usercase, but worth mentioning nonetheless.
I think there are other arguments against Discord that haven’t been mentioned: data privacy. I know there was an instance where Discord collected user without their consent, and that is enough for me to avoid the platform.
I much rather use matrix or the horridly old IRC protocol than Discord. Or forums. Or just plain old issues!
Second, allowing access to message history is perfectly doable if the invite process involves the inviter providing the decryption keys to the invitee.
You’re actually joking with the “inviter providing the decryption keys to the invitee” part right?
The whole point why people use discord is that it’s simple, this is a feature that’d only annoy the average person, and every single extra step is a disaster for user retention (look at any eshop study).
Stuff like this is completely irelevant to discord, the tiny subset of people who actually care will and should use Matrix / other solutions, because that’s the people they were made for.
Have you tried using Signal on desktop? It doesn’t offer history syncing. Cross device for whatsapp for example is also a terrible experience. Unusable for something like Discord.
For a seamless experience Discord would probably have to store the keys themselves, defeating the whole point.
“If you have nothing to hide” has never been a valid excuse to compromise on privacy.
Yeah, most of the time you don’t actually need it, but if you don’t make it the norm, one day you’ll wake up and find that the entire concept of encrypted communication was made illegal.
As the UK is actively trying to do. And the first sparks of which have been seen in the EU as well.
And that’s before even bringing up that even innocent normal conversation data can be used to profile individuals and mass-influence the democratic voting process with targeted campaigning.
Discord is a DM platform first, a public space second. And it’s way better at being the first, than the second.
Providing support on discord is stupid, it’s only semi-public and hides solutions to already solved problems beyond the reach of search engines and real public platforms.
I don’t see how you intend to convince anyone to ditch Discord by deliberately misunderstanding a simple point.
Many support Discords expect people to chat in a channel, not DM. Many issues will be in the public, in a channel. There is simply no privacy issue here for the vast majority of problems.
Discoverability of past issues is another problem, but that’d still be problematic if you’re on Matrix.
I’m keeping my project’s community on Discord. People who use my stuff seem satisfied.
This thread shows that merely having a Discord acts as a good filter to inhibit users who aren’t going to be helpful.
IRC has the same problem as discord when it comes to using it for support. It can’t be searched. The same questions will get asked over and over again.
With forums and issue trackers, users can find a solution to previously solved issues with a simple web search.
This article is two years old, and perhaps discord have improved their accessibility, since this user find it more accessible then matrix. Yes, it’s a single usercase, but worth mentioning nonetheless.
I think there are other arguments against Discord that haven’t been mentioned: data privacy. I know there was an instance where Discord collected user without their consent, and that is enough for me to avoid the platform.
I much rather use matrix or the horridly old IRC protocol than Discord. Or forums. Or just plain old issues!
Discord collects every message you ever send in cleartext.
So does lemmy, so does matrix if that’s what the admin wants to do.
Lemmy is public and my matrix server doesn’t.
Yeah, e2ee on activitypub platforms isn’t widely implemented yet, but it’s likely it will be.
I don’t see discord making that jump.
You can even request your entire metadata blob to see for yourself.
That’s how joining a server and being able to see history works
That’s how discord does it.
Do you want to explain how to do it better?
Well, first, at least encrypt your damn DMs.
Second, allowing access to message history is perfectly doable if the invite process involves the inviter providing the decryption keys to the invitee.
You’re actually joking with the “inviter providing the decryption keys to the invitee” part right?
The whole point why people use discord is that it’s simple, this is a feature that’d only annoy the average person, and every single extra step is a disaster for user retention (look at any eshop study).
Stuff like this is completely irelevant to discord, the tiny subset of people who actually care will and should use Matrix / other solutions, because that’s the people they were made for.
Have you ever had to worry about the encryption keys in chat apps that encrypt messages? No?
That’s because the app handles it all. Why would you think I’m suggesting something complicated?
All I’m telling you, is that the technical limitation you claim exists, doesn’t.
They are exchanged between the two devices.
Have you tried using Signal on desktop? It doesn’t offer history syncing. Cross device for whatsapp for example is also a terrible experience. Unusable for something like Discord.
For a seamless experience Discord would probably have to store the keys themselves, defeating the whole point.
What are you exchanging on Discord where this is an issue?
I’d hope your doctor isn’t joining your OSS project discord to conduct appointments or anything.
“If you have nothing to hide” has never been a valid excuse to compromise on privacy.
Yeah, most of the time you don’t actually need it, but if you don’t make it the norm, one day you’ll wake up and find that the entire concept of encrypted communication was made illegal.
As the UK is actively trying to do. And the first sparks of which have been seen in the EU as well.
And that’s before even bringing up that even innocent normal conversation data can be used to profile individuals and mass-influence the democratic voting process with targeted campaigning.
“Help, your library isn’t loading the Foobar files created in Bazfoo 2024” is not something that is sensitive data.
It is not my responsibility to manage random people’s baseless paranoia as a project maintainer.
What?
You need a forum, not a fucking discord server.
I’ll simplify:
How is there is a practical privacy issue here when the purpose of the chat is public support?
There should be no expectation of privacy in a public support chat/forum to begin with.
Let’s not be unreasonable with dogmatism here.
Again. What?
Discord is a DM platform first, a public space second. And it’s way better at being the first, than the second.
Providing support on discord is stupid, it’s only semi-public and hides solutions to already solved problems beyond the reach of search engines and real public platforms.
Discord is NOT a public space.
I don’t see how you intend to convince anyone to ditch Discord by deliberately misunderstanding a simple point.
Many support Discords expect people to chat in a channel, not DM. Many issues will be in the public, in a channel. There is simply no privacy issue here for the vast majority of problems.
Discoverability of past issues is another problem, but that’d still be problematic if you’re on Matrix.
I’m keeping my project’s community on Discord. People who use my stuff seem satisfied.
This thread shows that merely having a Discord acts as a good filter to inhibit users who aren’t going to be helpful.
IRC has the same problem as discord when it comes to using it for support. It can’t be searched. The same questions will get asked over and over again.
With forums and issue trackers, users can find a solution to previously solved issues with a simple web search.
Besides the privacy, Discord is also complicit in spam attacks against the Fediverse.