I’m 35 and grew up on the Internet chatting on AIM and chat rooms as a teenager, and Discord feels very much like that. I like it a lot and vastly prefer it to text messaging or Facebook messenger.

Funny you should say that - I’m 38, and feel the same way. So much so, in fact, that I set up a Discord instance for my 13-year-old daughter to converse with her friend group.

It’s super nice because they can set up channels for only some subset of the everyone on the instance, and because I admin it, I can see everything that goes on there if there’s an issue. I don’t expect issues, but the fact that I’m the admin means that a lot of her friends’ parents who are otherwise relatively strict allow their kids to use it.

I have no kids so have 0 context, but discord servers are very easy to create. If your child wants to avoid your surveillance couldn't they just make a new server that you don't admin? If there are parental controls can't they just make a new account? Has this been a problem for you?

Different person, but I have a kid. If your parental technique is 'surveillance', they're just going to go over to friend's house instead. It's like a micro-managing manager, it's going to be really ineffective and compliance is an illusion.

Setting the boundary of 'you can use Discord and only this channel I've setup for you and your friends' works if you've spent their whole life setting reasonable boundaries that you discuss with them. Just like an adult, reasonable boundaries are more likely to be complied with.

To the specifics, they could create a new account/server, but it's really obvious on the server list (set a unique server icon). Discord doesn't have parental controls (e.g., you can't set a settings PIN so the settings can't be changed), but there are a lot of server controls you can setup to restrict access (like really short invite times, for example).

Sure, they could create a new instance if they wanted - but it's just easier for them not to. Plus, if they did, then some of their friends would either not be able to join or would get in trouble when their parents saw that they were members of a second server.

It's honestly not something I'm worried about. I'm just saying that using the server I set up is the path of least resistance for them.

Does Discord have scrollers and punters?

Asking for a friend, who is into 133t vv@rez.

Yeah, my "with friends" chat moved from MSN -> Facebook -> Skype -> Discord. My "with family/professional relations" moved Email -> Facebook -> Whatsapp in the same time. My "random internet groups" moved MSN -> IRC -> Discord -> Matrix.

I miss AIM, honestly. Nothing quite matches it, these days.

I think you are being nostalgic. The current generation of communication software (iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Signal, Messenger, Hangout, Matrix, etc) trumps what was popular in the 90s/00s.

And every one of them needs a separate client, with a separate list of friends and handles, a separate program to check and monitor, ensuring that they are well-behaving. The current generation of software has no equivalent of Trillian or Pidgin, which could interact across any protocol. Heck, the current generation has no concept of "protocols" at all, instead treating the network communication as something entirely internal and subservient to the program running it.

...well every one of them except Matrix, which can plug into Telegram, Discord, Facebook Messenger, and Google Chat - which I'm using all of!

I know a lot of people hate it, but Signal piggybacking on your phone number and native contact list is a reasonable workaround to that “seperate contact list” issue. And mobile push notifications make that “a seperate program to check and monitor” a non problem, at least for me.

Did you check Franz/Ferdi? Though its Electron, it does support a lot of protocols.

People here (NL) barely use iMessage. They use WhatsApp mainly. I prefer (and do use mainly) Signal. For group chat, Matrix. Though Discord is (unfortunately) very popular. I dig it only for gaming.

Doesn't Ferdi just put everything into an embedded browser and call it a day? I may be wrong here as I used it for a brief stint, but that is basically what I picked up from it.

Nope, here's why.

* single chat client (not a plethora on many platforms these days)

* ability to set online, offline, away, invisible (basically if you're available or not, whereas Facebook/Instagram/Slack don't really have that same separation and even the ones that do tend to not be as popular)

* Single-purpose platform, no other social media needed to carry it. i.e. Instagram's DM's are tucked away. Discord is technically single-purpose, but it's also at its core a social media platform, you need to join servers/Discords for all the separate things you're into, etc. so it's also not a single-purpose platform).

Nah not really. For normal users maybe, but if you were into programming you own utilities bots, scripts etc, today most platforms are very limited.

Out of all of them I like discord the most, but it's not hard to find problems even there. (weird scrolling, nearly useless search). I miss custom clients.

Plus, while I like the integration gifs images and some emojis, I generally find it overused in almost all servers I am on.

The nostalgia is partly for centralized reasons. It's undeniably convenient when everyone uses one thing (or ICQ).

I too remember having all my friends on AIM, and my signature being about throwing real rocks at my sham-friends.

I don't see any difference in those compared to ICQ of 1996. I have a 6-digit ICQ number btw.

Same. I actually downloaded it in a VM and logged in one last time before the AIM servers went offline a couple years ago.

Its kind if funny that Apple Facetime and Facebook are the way my child speeks with his grandmother. He loves his grandma, but the tech will forever be old and lame as a result.

The same will happen to Discord, too. Personally, I still think ICQ and IRC are the epitome of chat applications.

DeadAIM by JimADI was the epitome of chat for me... There was AIM+ as well...

It seems like yesterday we NEEDED to hack a chat client to remove ads to make it usable... Kind of how we use adblocking on web browsers to make the web usable...

While removing the ad was the first feature I think tabbed messages and message logging were the most popular DeadAIM features

I'm actually really glad to hear that Discord is the popular platform among young adults. I run an educational/professional Discord server so this has me thinking I'm in the right place to help teach people about my industry.

Thanks for the insights.

My biggest worry isn't that Discord (or whatever is next in that space) kills off other IM, but that it kills off email - i.e. the last truly widespread open and federated protocol for person-to-person communication.

Discord is really where all the kids are.

Can someone explain the appeal of Discord? It seems to be the same as Slack. In what way is it differentiated from existing messaging services?

It appeals to gaming communities rather than business ones through it's design and features. You don't have to sign up to instances separately - there's a single account you use to sign into any, and you can adjust your picture/nickname per instance. It's got great streaming and voice channel features. Because of all this, it's the #1 platform for gaming communities, and many other tech communities opt for it as well.

There are some really vibrant programming language communities on Discord. The Python Discord always has very active servers, for instance: https://discord.com/channels/267624335836053506/267631170882...

God you sound like a fun parent