Ask HN: Why are Discord servers called “servers”? Is it due to the architecture?

5 points·ZYinMD··6 comments

I wonder if each server is an actual server from a tech standpoint. If not, isn't it a daunting name for new users? Before I became a user, for a long time I thought Discord was an open source protocol where everybody can start their own server by setting up and hosting the server which stores all the chat histories, which is too formidable to venture into.

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I'm guessing it is from TeamSpeak and Mumble days, where friends would need to specify the domain or IP address of an actual server in order to be in the same chat.

It's a social engineering move, that distracts from actual operation/ownership of your data. You feel like you're running server, with a bit of the power/headaches involved, but you're not. The users are validated across all discord instances, you don't do that on your own, so it takes care of some headaches of administration.

It's a closed garden, though. Never forget that.

I always thought the idea was to mirror the terminology of the online gaming community, but I'm interested in being corrected if that's wrong.

I think the users started calling them “servers” and it stuck. Their API, and I’m guessing internal naming as well, calls them guilds[1]

[1] https://discord.com/developers/docs/resources/guild

I guess that this is also a good marketing move: anyone can start a new server. It gives you a sense of power - you have your server, and it is super easy to set it up.

They could have kept the ambiguity but used a more relevant term like "domains".

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