I refuse to use Discord because I don't know how or to whom they are going to sell my data yet. It's possible they go to a subscription model but I doubt it, it seems more likely they'll be acquired by one of the big data brokers at some point.
They tried to pivot themselves into a game store, but that appears to not have gone particularly well.
Not too sure on the privacy front. I don't believe they sell any user data, yet.
[1] - https://blog.discordapp.com/how-discord-stores-billions-of-m...
I still wouldn't recommend using it for anything because of the potential gold mine they have with the user data. I can imagine Tencent or someone similar coming in for the data alone.
Oh please. The CEO's last company got sued for that and this time he made sure to make it obvious in the ToS.
For hanging out with people and just having casual conversations I think it's fine. Don't say anything you want kept private. I do think it's unfortunate that people don't consider where their data is going or how it's used on a broader scale, but for those of us who use technology more intimately I think we can afford to make these sorts of decisions. I'm happy with the convenience and the interface and I'm okay knowing that the communications are likely going to end up in the hands of some big marketing company some day.
Which is fine, except the analogy in this case is someone who is always sitting next to you and has access to all your conversational history - which may be public in isolation but private in aggregate.
That doesn't mean they can't also sell your data, but if your root concern is where they're getting their revenue, game sales is where.
You do know though, absolutely everyone. Read their ToS and they make it pretty obvious.
- The ToS has nothing to do with data usage
- The privacy policy explicitly states they don't sell user data
- Multiple employees are on the record as saying they don't
- There's no evidence they do
- They've said that nitro subscriptions and game selling are done to avoid ever needing to do ads/data selling.
- They're VC funded to the tune of over $100 million and thus have taken their time with monetization options.
Discord "selling data" is nothing more than a (very) weak conspiracy theory.