this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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I was talking with a friend about this when they announced age verification. He seemed pretty optimistic that this would hopefully bring back forums/irc/vent servers or anything self hostable, but I'm not to sure. I'm sure all of us here knew what was going on with this, but I'm sure the average person still doesnt care as much and will continue to trade away privacy for convenience. We all have family and friends who come to when something like this happens, but continue to use services afterwards. Seems like we will continue to be a fun club of like minded people here on fedi stuff with most people staying with what they know.
Sorry for the rant
He's naive as hell, especially if he thinks that the average person is willing to self-host fuck-all.
This'll drive some of the more privacy-conscious users somewhere else, but some might not have an option depending on what they use it for, and many software projects etc. use Discord for support ("I just won't use that software!" is an idiot's answer to that, because again, you might not have a choice). LGBT+ folks will probably be more spooked, but even they might not have a choice.
The average user won't give a flying fuck
I think he was half joking and half thinking of communities hes on that are more tech savvy. I'm also a little bit younger than him and interact with people younger than me, and I think theres a disconnect there.
Yes, I miss vent and irc but most people never used text or voice chat until it was centralized and braindead easy to use. I would like to go back to something like that, but most people never used it in the first place (compared to active users now) and probably have no interest in learning/setting it up.
As an early 30 something guy, I don't see most people my age hopping ship to something like Matrix or older comm software because of the learning curve vs Discord. Younger people even less based on my personal experience.