There is no truer adage to me than nothings is perfect. And when it comes to anything related to Discord it’s no different.

Discord itself to me has been an issue for years. Its use of data collection, the obsession of companies trying to buy it all were concerning. For me the latest age verification just further reinforces my beliefs. That being said the majority of users who ignored all this and kept going, really nothing would change. Most people I know use Discord lightly and aren’t in large chats that use hentai gifs. I still would tell anyone who would listen to get out of dodge. But if you never cared about data usage then you’re probably not going to start now.

For all the alternatives out there truth is, none are really anywhere near perfect. Matrix and most of its clients while encrypted don’t offer true jump in /jump out game chat. More a kin to Skype really. Foss Discord implementations like Spacebar are to all over the place and for me are not really functional. Stoat while probably my favorite is still really small and not holding up to the stress of the user influx. And of course it’s missing “discord features” and the new kid Fluxer while appealing is still to new and it’s monetization model a little to concerning. 300 bucks as a backer for unproven project ? And of course with the exception of Matrix none of the other projects currently offer encryption.

Truth is no option really is ideal. Truth is all the options have some pretty serious flaws. And truth is getting your large swaths of friends to move might be close to impossible.

So if you are looking to move please do some digging. Ask people who use the apps their opinions. Try to as a group of friends chose to make a move.

And the final truth is it’s a really good thing we finally have some options. No matter the flaws having competition brings innovation.

I hope this posts helps clear up some things for people who might be confused or concerned.

  • chunes@lemmy.world
    1·
    16 days ago

    Fluxer wants to have a ‘monetization’ to give payouts to ‘creators.’ Hard pass.

    My wife and I have been using Stoat and it’s been mostly fine, but they’re already implementing age verification.

    Stoat being based in UK makes me nervous as their laws are ridiculous. Devs claim that they are going to try to only apply draconian things when necessary but I have my doubts.

  • hexagonwin@lemmy.today
    1·
    17 days ago

    my solution is Zulip/XMPP/IRC/Jitsi, none of them can replace every functions of discord but they partially can and it seems like they’ll work for my use case.

  • mononoke@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    I have offered to do a lot of education and technical effort surrounding this, e.g. helping groups migrate in some of the circles I’m involved with and all it’s really gotten me is abuse and condescension, bafflingly. No one cares and if they do it’s mostly superficial and they want the easiest way out—someone/something do everything for me, and I mean everything. I don’t want to click more than two buttons and even that is pushing it, buster. Sometimes there aren’t easy solutions, though, and I think this is one of those times. Big Tech is massive and in the world we live in now we cannot have all of the things it promises without immense tradeoff, and for the most part it just isn’t worth it. The modern web being almost completely centralized around Discord is really harmful, like what happened with Facebook years ago. What used to be simple, publicly accessible websites for all these groups, locations and interests with email, forums and chat rooms for asynchronous as well as real-time communication is now entirely on Discord or Facebook. It’s disastrous. Neither of those things are easily accessible or friendly to archival…why do I need to be in a Discord chat room or Facebook group for community events around my public library? It’s absurd. I hate all of this so much, and basically no one around me agrees with me so we’ll just circle the drain forever while the “pet cameras” start calling DHS on our neighbors.

    I’m just going back to xmpp, maybe mumble for voice calls. They’re both friendly and simple and xmpp supports modern features just fine. I can host it for myself and my friends who care; I don’t have much hope for the masses anymore. I don’t really like how bloated Matrix/Synapse is, and everything else is riding coattails we don’t need to ride. I don’t care about video games or streaming to people in a chat room or anything like that, and if I did I’m sure something like Jitsi handles that well enough. Oh no, a second program!! We are all so dependent on tech in our lives but it seems like so many want nothing to do with being informed about it on any level…I just don’t get it.

  • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
    1·
    16 days ago

    discord was a one-stop shop for multiple very different things.

    Retvrn to gamer clans coordinating in forums, talking in mumble, chatting in IRC &c.

    one program for one purpose and a community webpage tying it all together

  • LycanGalen@lemmy.world
    1·
    16 days ago

    Genuinely curious: Stoat’s Community Guidelines list the legal jurisdiction for their Service Operator as the United Kingdom (sorry for the awkward sentence structure) I know that any online platform that provides “risky” content to the UK has to perform age checks, but I’m curious if the privacy impact increases when the service is hosted in the UK? Eg, would they be required to conduct age checks for all users, rather than just UK users?

      • Zanathos@lemmy.world
        0·
        15 days ago

        Isn’t Matrix open source? And wouldn’t hosting your own instance unfederated resolve that concern?

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
          1·
          15 days ago

          Yes Matrix is open source so technically if there’s a backdoor people should be able to find it. But the dev team behind Matrix sketches me out so I wouldn’t be surprised if they sneakily hid a backdoor.

          Personally I wouldn’t trust "privacy’ software developed by an Israeli company which has made spyware in the past. It’s not direct evidence that Matrix has backdoors, but sometimes stuff is just sketch.

  • snowsuit2654@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    16 days ago

    From my quick testing I did the other day, the conclusion I came to was:

    • Fluxer looks like the easiest drop-in replacement for my group. I agree I am also a little hesitant about its longevity & funding.
    • Matrix UX leaves some to be desired, but it’s functional and I like the E2EE.
    • We don’t have anyone good enough at selfhosting in my group to even attempt Spacebar.
    • Stoat just doesn’t seem viable. Lack of screenshare is a big issue for my group.

    Surprisingly, the new TeamSpeak 6 looks pretty okay to me, but the UX is pretty different so might have a little bit of a learning curve for some people in my group. It costs money for a server but honestly my group is fine with that. We used to pay for a Mumble server back in the day but it doesn’t have robust text channels so we don’t want to move back to that.

    • 64bithero@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      16 days ago

      For me Fluxer is technically more feature complete with steaming options. But banners and custom emojis are behind paywalls. (Non local hosted)

      Stoat offers free banners, emojis a nice UI even a community browser! Its voice chat works well enough but no streaming features. Stoat is purely donation based at the moment.

      Sounds like Fluxer is gaining momentum mainstream wise. I’m happy with either option …

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
      1·
      15 days ago

      EDIT: The Fluxer dev has agreed to remove the CLA!

      I was just informed today of a huge red flag for Fluxer; it has a contributor CLA that could allow it to change to a non-FLOSS license in the future. I was hopeful for it previously, but that kills it for me.

      Also @64bithero@lemmy.world

      I’ll be sticking with Movim, which is already federated, encrypted, can do group video calls, can even screenshare, and most critically does not have a CLA.

  • Sanctus@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    0·
    17 days ago

    Im about to try to self host stoat. I’m really feeling like spinning up 3 or 4 of the new services and trying each to see which one or mixture works best. If anyone else is doing this we should start a megathread

  • hayvan@piefed.worldEnglish
    0·
    16 days ago

    The big problem is, every good privacy-respecting solution costs money and comes with the inconvenience of setting up a new account. Having lived 90s Internet I don’t mind that at all, I actually kind of prefer it, but I can understand how younger folks can be discouraged.

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
      1·
      16 days ago

      One of the problems is that a “privacy-respecting solution” that includes a monthly bill is self-defeating. It creates a paper trail.

      Part of why I want to self-host in the first place is to get away from shitty gigantic corporations. Discord, Spotify, Netflix, HBO, Disney, etc. Just because you are paying them doesn’t mean they aren’t making you a product anyways anymore.

      I would love for a good way to do this without having to rely on Cloudflare or Tailscale or similar too. Even if they have free options today, what are those free options going to look like 2 years from now?

    • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      16 days ago

      My young friend was like , why would you have to pay for a server?? And I’m Like bud, if you aren’t paying, you are the product. They don’t get concepts like servers and that they are offsite hardware…hard for them to conceptualize.