this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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Discord isn’t exactly known for generous file-sharing limits, still, the messaging app offered a 25MB limit to free users. The company has now updated its support page to reflect the upload limit for free users has been lowered to 10MB.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (6 children)

I'm completely out of the loop, so I might as well ask you: where is discord so established? Never used it in my life. I used IRC, ICQ and MSN in their time. Now for work Slack, teams and zoom. Signal and Telegram privately. Email for everything.

What am I missing? What does discord provide?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Discord is used a lot for gaming groups, modding, software development, and has largely replaced forums for lots of niche communities

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 months ago

Which is unfortunate. Hiding projects, code and support behind discord is just wrong.

There are Linux and open source communities on discord. I mean, just think about that for a second. These people have chosen to put their stuff on a platform that has refused to acknowledge the existence of their OS / development platform. Every other post on Reddit in the Linux community before I left was about some half assed discord workaround.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately, a lot of fandom communities, video games, and (ugh) hobbyist development projects have Discard servers instead of a forum or similar.

It provides a weird IRC-but-not-really type experience that is similar to MSN in some ways. A lot of younger people flock to it because they find computer stuff difficult and they just want it to work, be easy, and have an app. The UI is trendy even though it's horrible to actually navigate due to all the wasted space and buttons.

I really just think it caught on at the right time, though the video calling is pretty good. What I have a problem with is that you need to join a server to access any information inside of it, so it's not searchable from outside of the Discord ecosystem. For dev projects or large communities, that sucks and makes the internet a worse place.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Personally I originally went to Discord because it was the alternative to skype which was increasingly becoming shittier and shittier when Microsoft bought it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Discord is great as chat program. It should've only ever been used for that. It completely sucks as forum replacement. Discord should've had very little value to any decent organization.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Yes, that's how I ended up there too. At the time, Skype sucked and Mumble/Ventrilo/etc. were seen as too old-school for my friends (and a lot of them didn't have PCs, just smartphones). We also tried Google Meet, Zoom, and Facebook Messenger at various points but Discord always seemed like the most reliable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I have a hobby development project with a modest community and maintain a Discord server basically because it's necessary in order to avoid reducing my potential community reach by at least 50%.

I'm active on GitHub and respond to comments and issues there. I maintain an official thread for my project on the official forum for the game it's related to. I also keep all documentation, downloads, and guides off Discord and on the clearnet. Discord is still easily 80% or more of where people look for information about the project.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's great - I am obviously not talking about you in that case. I understand why people want to use it, I just don't think Discord's features are good enough to justify the mass adoption and the walled garden and UI are bad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yeah, I'm just sort of also complaining because it feels like I have to use it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Every single small game I play has effectively the entirety of their support, community and forums run through discord. Instead of easy to search and discover forums, I have to use crappy infinite chat logs. It sucks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

A really ugly and confusing UI.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Discord is fashionable. That’s it. The whole app is fantastically impractical if you want to use file or screen sharing. It’s just a bunch of gamers circle-jerking each other, which is a perfect way to keep them from infesting the rest of the internet.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

ICQ

You sure about that part? I thought they shut down. I guess they might have some user-based servers?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

if you read the whole sentence it might make more sense...

i used [...] in their time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Whoops, I certainly missed that. Thank you!