Discord was always an overhyped crap.
Trying to get my friend group to switch over to Stoat (formerly Revolt) as soon as possible – I think Matrix is a harder sell for people not already in the federated spaces, or non-tech savvy people, but I’m hoping it fits the need.
Stoat seems to be very early in development still. Matrix has gotten easier for non-technical users recently.
Oh, for real? Thanks, I’ll check it out - appreciate it buddy!
Edit: Just check it out, and it’s honestly got a alot (almost all) of the features I’m looking for, including a Canadian English language option. It sucks that it doesn’t seem to have custom roles/tags or custom emojis, but aside from that it being able to pin messages, have separate channels and voice rooms and being E2E encrypted are ticking the right boxes for me.
Read: Discord is de-anonymizing all users.
Leeeave.
Considering my friend whom I never thought would migrate contacted me first about this I think Discord is pretty fucked.
Anyone know if Stoat is a worthwhile alternative?
Its kinda buggy, but has 95% of discord functionality without the bullshit
But discord is buggy as fuck…
Frankly it should be illegal.
Not just “never required.” Explicitly disallowed.
You’re right, but some governments are forcing it too.
Discords about to lose a lot of users
Yeah just like Reddit and Twitter and Threads etc. etc.?
I doubt it. this doesn’t really affect the majority of people, it just makes all accounts “teens” by default which blocks suspected nudity and age restricted channels
how many you bet?🤭
At least 5
Enough
Went ahead and canceled my nitro.
Also cancelled mine. I don’t suspect this change will actually directly affect me personally, but it’s the final straw on a big pile of straw. I know plenty of people here will admonish those of us that were paying for it in the first place, but better late than never I say.
Not entirely sure what I’m going to transition my group to. It’s quite likely we won’t actually have one replacement, but many. We used text, voice, video, and screensharing on Discord (plus many other, though less important features). I don’t know of an alternative that does all of it.
The only person I know who had nitro also had already cancelled their subscription before I even talk with them and they use lots of other mainstream platforms like
twitterregularly, so I was surprised.Does Element not support all of that?
I already built my Matrix server. I’m ready for Discord’s enshitification
Is that an open source alternative?
Yes, and federated.
It’s not ideal but under the circumstances we have to fall back to what we can. It’s not up to our standards we have to build something that is now, corporations won’t do it for us if that poison pills. The the day is when that was workable or firmly over now
Yup.
Does Matrix support screen sharing yet? IDK why I’m having such an issue getting a solid answer other places.
I’m able to do screen sharing, voice calls, video calls on element.
Group voice chat?
The ui indicates this is possible but I haven’t personally tried it.
Regarding screen sharing, I wasn’t able to capture application sound, but that may be a Linux issue as discord used to have the same problem.
You can always just pipe the audio through the same sink that your mic goes into or make a virtual mic that receives both and pass it on. That’s how I deal with sharing applications in VCs (using qpwgraph to change the connections via GUI instead of command line).
Yeah but that’s inconvenient ofc.
Depends on you use-case. For most, probably. For me, it means I only have to learn how to do it once and it works on every single platform that has voice instead of figuring out the settings for each one individually. Also means I can just share audio any platforms (allowing me to use a custom soundboard and listen to other audio without sharing that other audio easily or actually sharing my screen) or do things like add Easyeffects in the middle. But I get why some would prefer an all-in-one experience.
I have the same issues on windows too
There is an issue for it but no one seems to be working on it https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/issues/3657
might depend on the client, but i know element supports it
My Matrix server uses Tuwunel and I use FlufflyChat as a client. I don’t seem to have voice chat nor screensharing.
But more robust versions of Matrix, like Synapse or Element, might have it.
I use Yunohost for simplicity, thanks for the link though
IIRC only Synapse supports video/voice calls and only Element & Element X reliably work for video/voice calls.
Synapse supports certain specifications that make video calls less buggy, but it works on all of the major homeservers.
Yeah, wouldn’t be suprised. I chose the lightweight versions when setting up my Matrix server. Mostly as a test.
Are there any alternatives that have screensharing
Matrix (Element Call specifically)
Signal
and thats about it.
OBS studio with whatever you’re using for video chat.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but as far I remember, I don’t think OBS has Peer-2-Peer screensharing.
I believe they are saying to use OBS just for screen capture, then use that feed as the ‘camera’ input for whatever video chat application you are using
I know Element sucks compared to Discord but with more users and potential funding interest from that user base growth, it can get a lot better and snowball to fast improvements. Blender was the butt of jokes until version 2.8. Like 15 years of being easily dismissed as major commercial production worthy. Element can get better. It’s the story of pretty much all the well regarded general consumer targeted open source software we use today
I feel like Matrix already hit the “elbow point” where it’s getting good fast. It’s very usable, I have ~10 contacts I regularly communicate with on Matrix.
I know Element sucks compared to Discord
Only if you don’t care at all about privacy, agency, or continued access to your communities regardless of corporate whims.
Element can get better.
Yes, as can other Matrix clients, and the network itself. And they are. :)
I think this is the a major step in discords plan to be a service to games (ie business-to-business).
They are positioning themselves to be an age-verifying platform for games, alongside in-game chat, in-game VoIP, in-game store and game community.At some point, games are going to have to require age verification. It’s just the way the “protect the children” bullshit is going (instead of “enable the parents to raise their kids”, which is far to socialist and progressive) Or game shops will. But if you don’t sell your game, that bypasses game shops. And if cracks can bypass purchasing, then… It’s on the game to comply with laws.
If there is in-game chat: needs age verification.
If there is in-game voip: needs age verification.At some point, discord is going to roll out this massive suite of dev tooling that “just works” for devs creating multiplayer games with voip, chat, in-game purchases, gifting in-game purchases to friends, friends lists, out-of-game chat, game communities etc. while also offering age verification.
It already does a lot of that.
They are getting ahead of the age verification laws so they offer a very simple path for developers to “just pay discord” to skip a HUGE legal minefield, and get a bunch of functionality for whatever cut discord decides .Classic regulatory capture example.
It’s for everyone who wants to access adult content or get messages from people they might not know, according to their release.
Which includes many of the wargaming, traditional art, and queer Discord servers my partner and I use. Never assume that when a bad actor says “adult content” they mean hardcore porn and snuff, they mean everything that doesn’t conform to their ideal christofascist ethnostate purity. And now they have a list of all the “dangerous” nonconformists while blocking everyone else from being exposed to “dangerous” ideas. This should chill people to the bone. Nobody should be okay with this anywhere, in any capacity, in any quantity, whatsoever.
Even if it is hardcore porn, that still doesn’t mean I’m going to give them an ID/pictures to verify who I am just so I can see the art people draw of ███████████████.
This should chill people to the bone.
Whenever I read this idiom, I am reminded how many folks do not advance their psychology & neurological studies. A realistic idiom that is very true:
you can lead a horse to water, but
And the “stone the gays” people are the ones who get to decide what is and isn’t adult content
Discord’s filters are kind of infamously bad about what they detect as “adult content.” I, for one, will not be supplying an ID to anyone. They’ve already given me several compelling reasons not to to give them money, but it seems that this one finally pushed me over the edge.
Who doesnt love getting spearphisted by all these random girls on discord that send friend requests without ever talking to you?!
Don’t worry, this will still happen, they’ll just use stolen IDs from previous fishing victims, or from the database of 70,000 that Discord already had breached.
Yeah, it’s the part of this that seems like a benefit. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t verify my age so I can’t get spammed by direct message.”
Bro leave all my discord girlfriends out of this
So, if I am not looking for adult content, and could not care less about getting PMs from people I don’t know, I don’t need to sub to this privacy nightmare?
Discord is still a privacy nightmare regardless, but at least they won’t require your ID by default.
That’s the way I read it
For those that can’t (or at least for now won’t) self-host, any suggestions on medium-sized #Matrix servers?
Or at least some database on those so users can check more easily, similar to the database sites for the ActivityPub?
You can create a free account on matrix.org with some limitations. I don’t know any list of servers unfortunately.
Problem of Matrix.org is that, afaik, it’s the biggest one, meaning if it suddlenly goes offline (again), people will be in the dark.
And we will make fun of you while you’re gone.
Since you mentioned self-hosting, I guess you’re talking about Matrix homeservers. Some are listed here:
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/hosting/
(Note that what Discord calls a “server” is not what anyone else in the networking community calls a server; it’s a confusing misnomer. Matrix calls it a space, but calling it a community would be understood by most people as well. Also, what Discord calls a “channel” is what Matrix calls a room.)
Meant instance 😅
Also luckily I’ve been training myself to not use the word “servers” for Discord for years now. Linguistics as hobby and computer habits making me bothered that they’re repurposing the word I understand as a computer/datacenter that acts as provider and all that.
But about your site, that isn’t what I asked for. I’m asking about a site that tracks total users and/or monthly active users, or medium-sized servers going by those metrics, like e.g. FediDB does. That page from Matrix.org, at least on phone, is more institutional, like a more resistance-free entry point for people curious.
IPO is clearly closing in fast. Enshittification intensifies. The VC’s need to get their ROI out so they can move to the next grift. Apparently they’re also going to have “age inference model that runs in the background” (read: AI) that pops in and hits your with that age verification if it determines you’re actually not acting like a teen.
