The trend of using discord over forums does suck though, it’s really hard to search old discussions.

A channel listing will give you _many_ results.

It's not like it used to be in the 90s but that's still something.

Seems reasonable to go with the growing platform with 1000x more users.

I agree! I am a nobody and forever will be a proud nobody!

Not OP, but they said the following in an answer to similar question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940707

"The technology is extremely flexibile, off the top of my head:

* Education (Linux, Programming, Security, ...)

* Live docs for arbitrary languages and binary libraries

* Preservation of historical software and games

* Virtualization of legacy Windows enterprise apps.

* Dev environment for Web IDEs

Just a few examples, the list could go on for long"

IRC is nice for people who use it, but it has a huuuuge barrier to entry for new users. The very first thing you have to do is choose a client out of a list of 100 clients, half of which haven't been maintained since 2003. Then you need to set up a bouncer somewhere so that you can see messages that were posted when you were away. Those two things will filter out 99.99% of new people.

Or, you could use Discord (or Matrix); people sign up for an account and that's it.

Our open-source project switched from IRC to Matrix (after having been on IRC for over a decade before that), and got a noticeable uptick in engagement.

Unfortunately, Matrix still has some long-standing UI quirks, which would make me reluctant to use it in a context where I want people to pay me money; particularly if some of those are non-technical users.

1. go to https://web.libera.chat/

2. click Start (as a Guest account)

And you still have the problem that if you're in the wrong time zone and happen to close the window, you may miss responses.

There are advantages to having high barriers to entry for a community; Ham radio is essentially a global chat room with an entrance exam, for instance. But there are costs too.