The beginning of enshitification of discord (while 100% expected) for some reason hits harder then any other service I've used throughout all these years. It has entirely replaced social media for me. It just felt more organic to me then anything else.

So... since I've heard about the ads coming to discord, I have looked into alternatives.

They do exist, in varying quality, and there are programs for some of them that make a "bridge" from a discord server to your new platform. It's possible to have your cake and eat it to.

Matrix looks really close, but it needs ALOT of love. I have high hopes for matrix because of the idea of it. Perhaps my lackluster experience was because I didn't choose the best client available. I'm still trying new things here.

https://matrix.org/

Revolt is the more complete product as of today.

https://revolt.chat/

Spacebar I have yet to try but it's on my radar.

https://github.com/spacebarchat

I just wanted to see if anyone else had other recommendations for me to try. I really would appreciate help here. Hopefully something open source and self hosted so I can stop migrating and sink some roots in somewhere.

Oh crap, is it IRC?