Advertisement
Advertisement

Aside from the fact that many Discord users seem to have adopted the platform precisely because it’s not easily searchable like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, there are plenty of other concerns as well. The move could open up more possibilities for fraud and impersonation, as we’ve seen with the recent hellfire on Twitter. There’s also been speculation that some people will now start camping on high profile usernames that belong to streamers and influencers on other platforms. But the biggest issue is that there’s no clear benefit to users with the change.

Advertisement

Discord, on the other hand, is a for-profit startup that needs to continually scale in order to get bought or eventually go public. Like Slack, it can’t just be really good at private messaging and voice channels, it seemingly needs to be a huge social platform all its own. Bleh. There are already genuine concerns about how the company harvests use data, and might potentially exploit it to train AI chat tools. Many of the better features, meanwhile, are locked behind the service’s monthly Nitro subscription.

The platform has been great in recent years, and was a lifeline for many when the pandemic shuttered everyone inside. Who knows what it will become in the future though, and changes like this are never reassuring. In the meantime, game companies keep moving their internet forums to Discord, leaving entire online communities at the mercy of the Silicon Valley growth mindset.