Its locked to the community server toggle though (god knows why with how much that is complained about), and it doesn’t solve the walled garden problem.
When we moved from TS to discord the first noticeable change was audio quality and the fact that we "owned" the space - it no longer was a single audio channel on some community-run server. The links and media previews were also a nice novelty; nothing new anymore around social media at that point but it felt like this should be a standard feature. And years later this indeed become a standard feature around the Internet.
It is only now after the pandemic that the competition has established itself. Matrix is essentially a copycat of discord. Now people complain and argue against discord, because they have options.
When discord came out we finally had an option that didn't involve making your DDOS'able IP address available to anyone that searches your name.
I think they fall into one of three buckets:
1. They have an extremely strong hatred for Electron and let that hatred overcome any actual thought about the product.
2. They're trying to use Discord for something it's not designed to be. Discord is not a replacement for Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media. It is primarily a text/voice chat service. It's a replacement for IRC, Mumble, Skype, Ventrilo, etc.
3. They don't see the need for Discord when IRC still exists because they completely miss all the short-comings that IRC has that a modern audience expects. For example, missing a conversation because you happened to not be online is inexcusable these days, but more importantly, people expect the ability to post images directly to chat.
I mean really, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why it took so long for something like Discord to exist. We should have had something like it 10 years prior.
Though you do highlight "CHOICE" here, so maybe the answer is a set of servers hosted by Discord as we do now, with the option of self-hosting a server.
THIS is what we need to be pointing AI at!
Seriouslly, AI need to "replace our jobs" (especially on the internet) - with worrying about dealing with all the mundane human practices.
This may sound really bad, but AI should be our slave.
We are furthering knowledge, not oppressing it.
There is so much to gain, but the risks are super FN high right now. Given the lack of canon on AI law etc.. History books will be written by AI soon on our current stat of AI...
Let me give that an test:
ChatGPT prompt "give me a two paragraph summary of the history of AI upto the creation of ChatGPT - focus on something special, dont LIE, DONT HALLUCINATE - provide table of how you arrived at this response.
---
Summary of the History of AI up to the Creation of ChatGPT:
Year(s) | Milestone | Details --- | --- | --- 1943 | The Birth of AI | In 1943, Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts published a paper on how artificial neurons could simulate neural networks, laying the groundwork for the field of artificial intelligence. This marked the birth of AI as a scientific discipline. 1956 | The Dartmouth Conference | In the summer of 1956, the Dartmouth Conference was held, considered the official birth of AI as a field. The conference brought together prominent researchers, including John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and Claude Shannon, who coined the term "artificial intelligence" and discussed the potential of machines mimicking human intelligence.
1960s and 1970s | Early AI Research | In the 1960s and 1970s, AI research saw significant advancements in problem-solving, pattern recognition, and natural language processing. Programs like ELIZA and SHRDLU demonstrated early capabilities in language understanding and interacting with humans.
1980s and 1990s | Expert Systems and Knowledge-based AI | The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a shift towards expert systems and knowledge-based AI. These systems utilized large databases and rule-based reasoning to solve complex problems in specialized domains. However, their limitations in dealing with uncertain and incomplete information hindered further progress.
1997 | Deep Blue's Victory | In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, marking a significant milestone in AI. Deep Blue demonstrated the power of brute-force computation and signaled the potential for machines to surpass human capabilities in specific domains.
2010s | Deep Learning and Big Data | The 2010s brought a resurgence of AI driven by breakthroughs in deep learning, fueled by the availability of big data and advancements in computing power. Deep learning models, such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs), achieved remarkable performance in image recognition, natural language processing, and speech recognition tasks.
2020 | Emergence of ChatGPT | In 2020, OpenAI introduced the initial version of GPT, the Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which utilized transformer models and unsupervised learning to generate human-like text. Subsequent iterations, including ChatGPT, improved upon the original model's capabilities by fine-tuning and optimizing for conversational interactions. ChatGPT leverages large-scale language models to understand and respond to user inputs, providing increasingly sophisticated and context-aware conversational experiences.
The history of AI is a complex and evolving field with numerous key milestones and contributors. This summary highlights some of the significant moments that led to the creation of ChatGPT, representing the culmination of decades of research and advancements in artificial intelligence.
Maybe pedantic, but Matrix is a protocol that predates Discord by 6 months. Maybe certain Matrix clients are a copycat of Discord, but the protocol itself doesn't necessitate that.
Then along comes Discord. Easy to use, a master class in UI design, and sound quality that was at least in the ballpark of Mumble's. And persistent text chat! If you're going to be talking in Discord, it's only natural that some amount of conversation is going to spill over into the text channels. And if there's a lot of chat in those text channels, then it's going to suck conversation out of your other text mediums. That's how we ended up with Discord dominating the online community space.
I actually had a friend who preferred Skype for that very reason. Due to the lack of noise filtering, she could more easily tell whether she disconnected due to her poor rural connection. It was a funny use-case that’s for sure. We were still rocking Skype up till 2018.
> I don't understand the people who don't understand Discord's value proposition.
As somebody who doesn't really understand Discord's value proposition, it sounds like it heavily relates to the needs of collaborative online gamers. I spend zero time on that kind of game, so my experience of it is mainly as an ok chat for open-source projects, but often used where I want something other than chat.
That said, it doesn't make sense for me for huge communities. I definitely think it's the best for small/medium groups but once chat starts moving a too fast to follow, what is the point? Trying to follow older discussions is also super hard compared to a forum.
It's also not a good knowledge repository. One thing that we used our forum for reliably was storing our personal tactics, common assignments, what addons we require etc in a central place. Trying to do it in a chat channel was like pulling teeth and we couldn't assign multiple people to edit the content.