I will never participate in weird internet caste systems | Hacker News Reader

I will never participate in weird internet caste systems

j3s.sh

43 pointsj3s57 comments

Man there's plenty of amazing examples of caste systems on the internet, but Discord Nitro ain't it.

Discord is a free app without ads. Nitro is a reasonable monetization strategy for a chat app that works incredibly well and fosters probably millions of communities.

TFA's point isn't that Discord shouldn't be monetized - it's that the monetization model is based on creating visible class differences.

A different monetization model is easily conceivable that gives paid users better functionality instead of (what the author calls) "aesthetic perks" that only serve to evoke class envy, as if like jewelry.

I don't have a strong position on the author's point. Just making sure the right thing is being discussed.

As noted in the post, Nitro users do get enhanced functionality for things like file upload sizes and streaming quality; I imagine that more intrusive better functionality than that would cause a much higher uproar than avatars or emoji, and given that this is a chat/voicechat/streaming app any functionality is necessarily going to be quite visible to other users.

What's the difference between functionality and aesthetic perks? Isn't the fact that one good is held by a group that is not you what evokes the envy? It doesn't matter if it's themes or if it's the ability to send larger messages. I find the distinction useless.

Straight from the article

> this post is mostly about the aesthetic perks. the things that cost discord exactly nothing

I presume the second sentence is shorthand for: no marginal cost for Discord, after the development is done.

So, two distinctions going on, which happen to be correlated:

1. Things that cost Discord extra resources (eg bandwidth/ storage space for larger uploads) vs things that don’t (extra emoji)

2. Things that allow you do more with Discord (upload large files with any type of content) vs things that allow you to express yourself more (use certain emoji)

The second distinction might not matter to everyone, but it certainly has a specific social component.

Isn't the current model better? Is it not (objectively) better for free users if they get all the same functionality as premium users?

This is really interesting if you consider a different vertical, like competitive gaming.

The whole concept around that is that, monetizing "functionality" would be unfair (breaks balance), so the healthy strategy is actually monetize "aesthetics" (skins, effects etc.)

I also don't have a clear framework to judge this, but at least in my subjective opinion, I would much rather a platform be monetized via the creation of powerless "figurehead elites" through aesthetics, than to tax the commoner when actually doing something productive. If economic realities imply there must exist different castes of users, won't it be better if the difference is purely a social rather than practical construct?

> A different monetization model is easily conceivable that gives paid users better functionality instead of (what the author calls) "aesthetic perks" that only serve to evoke class envy, as if like jewelry.

With a group of friends we subscribed to Nitro to boost our private server's capabilities, which we use almost every day so the "better functionality" is definitely there.

Quite tired of this particular author/blog on HN and their edgy take on everything.

This seems like a dramatic way to say you don’t want to pay to support Discord. I think individuals who actually live in a modern day caste system would be extremely offended by this comparison.

If not having access to "super reactions" or special avatars on Discord make you feel a genuine and affecting sense of envy and self-consciousness I uh... don't know what to tell you. It's some gifs, you just can't post some gifs.

This feels monumentally overblown to me. I don't pay for nitro but I clearly benefit from all the people who do and if they get some fun, silly little perks that's fine.

My first kid had some struggles with understanding why it was absolutely ridiculous to spend hundreds of real dollars to e.g. get a particular Dominus in Roblox. It caused a lot of fights for about a year, but it finally sank in. When my second kid started playing he started down the same path. Caused a few arguments for a little while but, one day my first told him it was pretty stupid to spend real money on fake stuff and that was the end of the problem.

I personally buy into things like that in places I want to continue to exist for a long time e.g. Rocket League, a handful of YT channels through Patreon, and even Roblox. Turns out it's really fun to play it with your kids if they're not constantly browsing the item shop and begging for Robux.

I've never witnessed anyone talking down to the "lower class" except from insignificant trolls no one in the community respects anyway. Maybe it's different on discord but, if it is, I would blame the members of the community first, discord didn't invent the idea of selling cosmetics to keep the servers running and everyone needs to learn how to get over jealousy at some point in the their life.

Nitro, or at least server boosting, gives you some non-status benefits. The obvious ones are upload size and stream + audio quality.

The article doesn't mention server boosting, but that's where the real desperation and social pressure comes in. Nobody I've met cares if you've got nitro, but admins definitely do pressure members into boosting.

Does that pressure go much beyond every YT channel with a Patreon mentioning it in every video? I really don't mind that kind of thing compared to "relevant" ads and all the tracking involved in that industry.

Imagine comparing paying for a free service for a few irrelevant perks to a millennia-old systemic social system of oppression (that’s de facto still around, by the way). How tone deaf can you actually be?

Next up: paying for Twitter Blue is slavery.

I did not infer a direct comparison, personally. To me it was more of a dictionary use of ''caste'' as opposed to an encyclopedic one. No censorship required in this case, please.

Speaking of dictionaries, there is a zoological use of the term ''caste''.

I agree with other commenters. Before Discord, voice over internet was not easy. Skype, Google Meet, Vent, TeamSpeak, and that other one I can't remember the name of that we used for a while.

Discord works. It works well. It might just be the most "desktopy" Internet app that I've ever used (yes more than GDocs).

If you don't want to pay for things, you get ads. And the ad market has been slowly deflating for over a decade. Just look at Twitch's most recent actions for just how well the ad supported Internet is treating users and content creators.

Pay for shit, or else.

What did Twitch do?

They've walked it back now, but they initially updated their content guidelines to basically say no non-Twitch advertising on their platform.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36221942

Wait, what was wrong with TeamSpeak?

We use Discord as the primary communication channel for our two-man startup and love it. Both me and my co-founder pay for Nitro not because we want to participate in an "internet caste system" (my-founder is basically the only person that would actually see my "Nitro" status and vice versa), but because we want to support a great product that has served us well over the years. Some of the perks are fun but generally go unused by us.

I get the point, and appreciate their input to the discussion.. but I'd rather pay money to matrix / element.io and make their service better. These kinds of problems don't seem to come up so often with FOSS. I don't use discord, but I can def see this kind of thing impacting children who do use discord.

I am sure people in actual caste systems would be pretty excited if they could join a higher caste for $3 a month.

You are taking the person's use of the term ''caste'' too literally.

They should have picked a word without these connotations then.

Perhaps you should take up your struggle over the term with zoologists then:

caste: (zoology) A class of polymorphous eusocial insects of a particular size and function within a colony.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caste

A bar is giving away free beer, but if you pay $10.00, you get a party hat. So you grab a free beer and notice a group of people wearing party hats.

Idk, still seems like a pretty good deal to me. Wouldn't hurt to support the joint either.

Interesting read, though. Some communities really are full of people who judge the worth of others from little status symbols, and I can understand wanting to stay away from that. But it's not Discord's fault if people can't just be adults about it.

Internet caste systems is just social status hierarchy. Or rather, showing off to others you're higher on the ladder.

People don't buy sports cars, or extremely expensive clothing because it's functional. But rather to project their above the plebs.

Games have skins or icons marking how high up you are. Most importantly, very expensive skins.

Honestly, discords isn't bad, you're not constrained by being a free user. In fact, we should thank the nitro users cause they keep discord free for us.

The sports cars analogy doesn’t resonate with me because there’s a functional difference between regular cars and sports cars. And plenty of people buy sports cars like Miatas, which have less than zero cachet or coolness factor, and thus can’t really project being “above” anyone.

Clothing with the modifier “extremely” probably makes sense though.

Do you think Discord should be free? Strange hill to die on..

The person doesn’t even like Discord:

https://j3s.sh/thought/using-discord-is-morally-lazy.html

So it seems weird to publish a rant about Discord Nitro.

I feel like Discords version works a lot better than Slacks for public communities. Someone has the option to pay as an individual rather than requiring a workspace owner to pay for everyone, which is impractical when there are 1000+ members.

Might be a better tactic to help people realize envying check marks and emoji isn't healthy.

I'm curious if the author realizes how much potential envy having access to the internet and a blog and the ability to read and write might produce in a real world caste system. To be producing content on the internet is participating in a caste system.

Ironic, that.

I applaud your perspective, but if you want to truly break caste systems, seek social justice. Seek educating people who don't have access to affordable schooling. Seek public health care. Seek affordable housing. Seek fair elections. Seek prison reform. Seek fair wages.

Seek everything that affords people the dignity of live that everyone deserves.

Discord is arguably the smoothest experience there is, like bar none. How do you suppose it should be paid for? Discord Nitro is the least obtrusive way.

have it owned by users and benefactors.

Has that ever worked?

Vanguard and some mutual insurance companies.

yeah except the capitalists killed it.

napster, bitorrent etc...

being tried now with mastodon et al...

Arguably, Napster and Bitorrent had issues that made killing them a tad easy.

Wonder what they were?

Nah. They were easy to kill because those in power wanted to kill them. The same excuses would have worked on plenty of other things that weren't killed, because those in power were happy for them to survive.

Like what.

Youtube had an even higher proportion of piracy than Bittorrent or Napster at the relevant time, assuming that's what the ancestor post was getting at.

Napster was easy to kill. Bittorrent is still alive.

> except the capitalists

The article is about monetising social status, and I think the majority of criticisms about capitalism are actually thinly veiled complaints about social status (often complaints about how others get more, rarely mentioning someone’s benefits compared against those that get less).

However social status exists independent of capitalism.

Replace capitalism, and you just end up with similar problems, just rotated, because the underlying motivation is the human drive for social status.

The article implies a wish for a world without social status signals, and rightly denigrates caste systems. Can we even change our nature to avoid status signalling?

Virtue signalling is also status signalling - just declaring a particular caste - and this article clearly declares their virtue.

I agree we should aspire to not be judgemental, and we should aspire to generosity, kindness, forgiveness. Regardless of what ingroup we belong to. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware of human failings, and imperfection in our systems is a compromise.

Right. It seems it's very rare, even among so-called egalitarians, to find someone that defies cliques, defies the urge to be offended, and lays down their weapons, all for an open conversation.

Matrix protocol is a good attempt

https://matrix.org/

Urbit is pretty easy to use now too.

https://tlon.io/

> How do you suppose it should be paid for?

As I get older and crankier, this is pretty much becoming my response more and more often, and not just to issues of who pays. More often than not the response is handwaving.

They make a massive amount of money selling user data.

Do you have a source on that?

Literally in their FAQ

https://discord.com/privacy

We don’t sell your personal information. Our business is based on subscriptions and paid products, not from selling your personal information to third partie

Discord: you can do text/voice chat with your friends for free, but if you want to use certain emojis, then we charge a fee

This guy: I'm being oppressed

They are harmless cosmetic features. Some people are into it, and don't mind paying a few dollars a month to keep the site up and running for everyone. If you don't care for it then don't pay, just like the majority of the user base. Just don't make up some righteous bullshit about why you are actually superior for paying nothing and still enjoying the benefits the service offers (while also showing everyone that you don't know what a caste system actually is).

Does Discord actually make enough sustainable money from Nitro? It doesn't seem feasible.

IRC still exists! Come hang out?!

...We really front paging emo high schoolers on HN now?

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