I also resent that discord/slack are companies that own their platforms, whereas IRC/Usenet/phpBB/etc were all software anyone could own and operate their own instance of. Sure you can have your own discord server, but youre still subject to the whims of Discord Inc. While they may not have done anything notably bad yet(I think there was a mini controversy with wallstreetbets but I didnt follow that story closely), but it's still centralization where it wasnt there before. Would you be ok with X Corporation you dont like buying Discord for cash tomorrow, even if they promise not to change any rules? Or does it make you feel easy to think about what they could do ? The Microsoft offer certainly scared some people.