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Comment by jmspring | Hacker News Reader

I’d take discord over slack. Aside from the lack of being able to use multiple email addresses…

Between publicizing my joined servers to other users, lack of fine grained notification control, constant captchas/email verification, and lack of alternative clients, discord teeters right on the fulcrum of convenience balanced by user-unfriendliness.

Might not exactly fix the issue of publicizing joined servers to other users, but one item of note is that Discord allows you to set a per server identity.

I much prefer being a lurker.

This "identity" consists of a different display name, it has no effect whatsoever on people seeing shared servers or your actual username by clicking the profile.

I really don’t trust this behavior.

The difference between an account and an identity was so unclear when I signed up for Discord that I actually just closed the app and gave up on whatever led me there.

The identity and “server” concepts are complete non-starters for me.

Discord is in complete control of what information is shared with other users. There’s no mechanical prevention on them changing this behavior by accident or on purpose.

Only the username, the avatar is a paid feature.

> publicizing my joined servers to other users

You're making this sound a little more dramatic than it is. Discord only makes your membership in a server public to users who are also members of that server (and who could thus see you in its member list).

"Only". I'm not into Discord in a big way, but this is propping up my reasoning as to why I don't like it. Being forced to join a server to browse it and having that shared with others is as bad as being forced to login to Twitter/X. Not to mention that conversations on Discord don't get indexed on Google, so finding solutions for some problems is an exercise in frustration.

reminds me of that site 'experts-exchange.com' which was a pre-StackOverflow login-only forum that nonetheless used to top Google search results. HN would have hated it. I'm surprised Discord gets a pass here.

The client also now sort of supports multiple accounts, but one issue is that the whole point of the discord client is to spy on your activity. If anyone thinks they're just collecting data about game application use, I have a bridge to sell you.

There's also a Chinese firm that owns a decent stake - tencent, I think.

For now. But you of course have no way to know that. And there’s no architectural reason for this to remain true, if it even is.

I signed up for discord once, was horrified by what I saw, gave up, and never looked back. Everything about identity and “servers” seemed to be the opposite of what I would want.

On the plus side when it inevitably shuts down I will be unaffected.

My favorite "wtf" moment is how Discord reveals to users when I have blocked them, because they can no longer apply emoji reactions to my messages. Good times.

I mean, they're going to find out anyways when you don't reply

What about the constant, flashy popups of GET DISCORD NITRO MEGA PLUS FOR 10% OFF, FOR 5 ANIMATED GIFS AND COLORED BACKGROUNDS?

It does really not help that the target audience for Discord is 14 year old gamers.

Psst, there's a free gift! Surprise, another feature you don't care about!

I paid for decent audio quality, got advertisements too

In a professional context I would avoid both. I don’t want to join chat servers for various SaaS I pay for where I just want a simple support question answered. At least with a forum, the questions and answers are indexed so I might find exactly what I want without having to reach out to support.

I’m not a community member, I’m a paying customer.

'Community' members tend to evangelize the product on social media, so you can understand why a lot of apps beg you to join the Discord.

I tried to use Discord once, but they demanded my phone number to use it, so I deleted it and never looked back. Absolute cancer of a platform.

Discord represents the same problem

Discord is much harder to manage, has many security risks, kids raiding your server, exposes emails from every user easily, and has a very shady business model.

I would never use it for something professional/business related.

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