i'll start with everything i know.
discord is a morally terrible, and untrustworthy company
see here, here, and here. no, i will not summarize them for you.
this likely won't improve. discord's new ceo was previously actiblizz's vice chairman. you're likely aware of the harassment and discrimination controversy from a few years back, and of the aggressive monetization practices actiblizz's games have. even outside of that, the previous ceo explicitly stated this is in anticipation of the company going public, which we already knew beforehand.
even before the new ceo, they obviously don't have qa testers.
not indexable
this isn't necessarily something discord has to fix, but i'd be remiss not to include it here.
discord servers are not indexable by search engines, and cannot be opened without a discord account, making the platform an information silo. for chatting, this is whatever, but when using software projects, this becomes very annoying, very quickly.
discord servers are created for open source projects like archipelago, because making a forum board on an already existing infrastructure is too hard people are already on discord and it's very easy to create a community on there.
because people are lazy, they then put a good portion of their documentation only in their discord server. this puts the information in a veritable black hole, forcing people to create a discord account and join the server to get what they need. not everyone can (discord isn't available in all regions) or wants to (i.e. you may not agree with privacy policy) do this, so some people are just SOL.
despite not feeling welcome in the archipelago discord server, i'm forced to join it to find some linux-specific scripts, get important information on logic, etc, because the documentation i'm looking for regarding various games is either not on the githubs/website or not very well exposed.
answer overflow exists and is a decent stopgap, but that's all it is, a stopgap. the real solution is just to not lock your documentation on discord and use something public instead so people can actually find it.
discord is a chat platform. discord is not a documentation repository. discord is not a forum board, despite how much it'll try to convince you otherwise. if you develop open source software, please make your documentation public in some way. a readme is easy to create and include in your repo, and i consider that the absolute bare minimum. for temporary problems, you can even just write a github issue and call it there, that's fine!
not everyone is comfortable with their conversations being fully public and i can respect that, but for the purpose of open source projects, there are objectively better alternatives to this use case, which in most situations they literally already have and are using.
terrible customer support
customer support has historically been trash. tickets often go unanswered, and sending too many chase emails to bump your ticket can get you blocked.
discord now uses AI to respond to support requests. as if their customer support wasn't already terrible as it stood.
have a problem with your account that you can't self-solve? go fuck yourself i guess, because you won't get an answer from support.
ads and monetization
some days, i've booted my computer, opened discord, and been greeted with popup ads, some of which being fullscreen. they're annoying. here are some examples.
► Show Spoiler: screenshot
► Show Spoiler: screenshot
it will worsen. starting next month, the mobile app will get video ads. discord is not profitable and they will do anything within their power to seem profitable so that people will invest in them when they go public.
ok we get it. what are good alternatives?
listed in order from "i daily drive this and can recommend it" to "i've never used it before"
for text: XMPP, Matrix, phpBB+mChat, IRC, email/DeltaChat, Rocket.Chat, Revolt, Mattermost
for voice: Mumble, Jitsi, Jitsi+Matrix, Peer Calls
i daily drive XMPP and highly recommend it; it can act as a gateway to other services like matrix, irc, and (albeit temperamental) even discord. Matrix is also very good, though the foundation that does most development has had some financial woes and the main client is a bit unstable. you're reading on a phpBB forum right now! IRC is still in widespread use today and is very stable (have you heard of a small website called twitch.tv? it uses irc for chat). everyone has an email address and DeltaChat is a chat app that's powered by your email.
Mumble straight up has better voice quality and mobile apps than discord. if you need video and screen sharing, Jitsi is your best bet.
everything i've listed is free (as in freedom) and open source.
Disroot offers free XMPP, Jitsi, and email services, among other things. if you decide to use their services, please consider donating to them, as the services are provided out-of-pocket. either way, centralization is bad, so consider self-hosting if you know how.
