Hacker News Reader

Comment by aoike | Hacker News Reader

Why are companies like Discord, Slack, Reddit etc. so hellbent on having users stick to their god awful front end clients? You can easily perform all the data harvesting you want on the backend. Just provide some open-source api clients, and let the community build the UIs they want.

View on HN

Why are users, especially technically-inclined ones, hellbent on using these proprietary services? Throw them all out if they are going to be this way since there are great alternatives. The last thing communities should do is build UIs around these types of services instead of building ones for systems/services that aren’t so hostile towards users.

> Why are users, especially technically-inclined ones, hellbent on using these proprietary services?

Because that's where people are.

> Why do you rob banks?

> Because that’s where the money is

— Willie Sutton, career bank robber, caught 11 times

Perhaps there’s a better solution out there

Analogous to the metaphor you just made, the "better solution" is not talking to people. I'm all-for open and secure communication protocols, but the layman isn't going to agree if you cast it as an all-or-nothing mentality.

You can a) set up a gateway/bridge or b) contribute to those platforms to make them better so users like them more as the open+secure options are more worth the long-term investment into instead of making users choose between privacy/security or having the ability to communicate.

For 99% of normal people, neither A nor B is something they are capable of. If the success of free alternatives is contingent on this behavior, we might as well throw in the towel now.

If the average Discord user read your comment, I think it would reaffirm their assumption that free Discord alternatives aren't for them.

Versus myself that would see that there is a security/privacy concern & would immediately see if I can use an alternative.

> since there are great alternatives

No. There aren’t.

Control over premium features. Which in a sense is valid, I rather have a product supported by people paying for premium features than a product that runs on ads or only does exist by the grace of venture capital.

Of course some premium features can be controlled server side, but not all of them.

For example, the extended message limit can quite easily be done by a custom client by splitting up the message. Similar for custom color themes.

Having said all that, in the case of Discord I honestly don't think they need to lock down third party clients for this. As most Nitro features are mostly server side anyway.

They have it in their hands to display inbound advertisment?

Because they want complete control over your experience.

It tarnishes their grand 'vision' for the user experience.

i suppose because of engagement metrics

Reply on news.ycombinator.com