this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Fuck AI
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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Idiot.
Also, discord sucks and it's a shame people use it when it's just going to enshittify like any other private for profit entity.
Discord sucks but every alternative has some major caveat that makes it suck more. Most people don't want to use separate apps for voice and text. Most people don't want to manually type in servers to play games.
Not defending them at all here but there's no compelling reason for most users to change when discord works and it works well
Just simple things like custom emojis seem to be impossible on most chat platforms, which is insane. Large part of why my friend groups won't move from discord is how the custom emojis are a key component in the everyday discussions, just like they were waaay back with msn messenger
I understand this but it's also a little "There's no compelling reason for us frogs to get out of this water. It's warm and comfortable". It's inevitably going to boil.
But you're right that there aren't great alternatives (that I know of). I think matrix is out there, but I don't know anyone who uses it.
That's also why the analogy exists, if the water slowly comes to boil, the frogs don't realize until it's too late, just like enshittification.
What happens when it's "too late" for your chat software, though?
The same thing as Digg I guess.
digg is currently locked down and will return triumphantly with some kind of shit they are planning and itll be very good its invite only my cousin can get me an invite but he said only if I let him peek at my girlfriend while she changes into her swimsuit. I think the new secret digg will be fucking very great I will let him do his peeking its worth it
I get the analogy but it's just chat software. Discord isn't that important to me that it's going to be a tragedy when it boils and by then, there will (hopefully) be an equivalent alternative we can move to. If not, we'll use something "worse" and it'll be fine.
But until then, it's still the best by a wide margin even if it has a stupid nitro button.
Are there any good self hosted options? I’ve looked into mumble but that was missing a lot of features
Not really, no. The feature set is pretty much impossible to provide profitably, or to self-host for most users, hence all of the services always enshittifying and/or shutting down.
Simple text chat is perfectly achievable. Real time video calls, sure, somewhat. Sending large files to eachother? Cloud-hosted chat history going back to the beginning of time? Not feasible without pretty significant monthly subscription costs. Can't grow the user base if you charge a subscription to all your users.
Anyways, Mattermost and Matrix kinda sorta work, until they don't work anymore.