Everyone has and knows Discord and it works pretty well. Forcing the use of some unknown open-source tool would only hurt involvement in favor of ideological purity — all the ideology in the world won't save your project if you can't get contributors.
A more charitable interpretation: "everyone who wants a Discord account can have one with almost no effort." Indeed, a person without a Discord account can click an invite link, click a few more times, and be chatting in a server (claiming your nick/setting a password is a few more clicks IIRC). Can the same be said for IRC/Matrix/email?
IRC: maybe, I've seen some webchat frontends that make it really easy to start. but people expect voice chat, embeds, etc so IRC doesn't really cut it anymore (which I find very sad)
I don't have an issue with people using discord. The issue I see comes with claiming to be working towards a "internet owned by everyone", and then promoting a centralized chat service.
I don't really see it as any different from people discussing communism in someones private bar or house, instead of only having such discussions in publicly owned forests.
The world they want is an ideal that hasn't been achieved yet.
It only makes sense to hobble yourself by not taking advantage of the existing infrastructure if your ideology holds existing infrastructure to be inherently immoral not merely substandard.
Private centralized spaces are less than perfect, but they're okay to use while you work to make something better.
The problem in this specific instance, the infrastructure does exist. It's even possible to set up a Discord/Matrix bridge as well, so you could set up your infrastructure on the FLOSS/Decentralized option, and then still bridge to Discord for those who prefer that.
The problem of decentralized/user-controlled communication is adjacent to the problem that this is trying to solve, so it's not even like "We're working on this, it's just not ready yet", they chose to use a centralized option over a decentralized one that is ready.
In this specific instance, I would argue that it is immoral to use Discord[0], as it disregards the efforts of a production ready project serving the same goal, in a different space.
[0] Perhaps not quite immoral, but pushing that direction. It certainly casts doubt on their actual aspirations.
Edit: I would like to thank you for your comment however, as it did make me stop and think for a while, and better consider my position on this topic.
I need to know if the people involved with ZoraOS understand the difference between leaving all silos and moving from one silo to another. That's not a given, seeing as how people seem to imagine that moving from, say, Reddit to a just-as-siloed "Free Speech" website is somehow an improvement.
Yes, solves an interesting problem if everyone plays by the rules.
But nothing in there prevents me from stealing your media, changing it slightly and reposting it, grabbing all that sweet sweet Zora cash, or whatever you would call that. I recommend to call it Karma, you know, like what you get for reposting on Reddit ;)
20 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 55.2 ms ] thread> Please join the development channels of our Discord and start a thread with the community.
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Especially when Matrix is right there, or Mattermost, or IRC, or email.
IRC: maybe, I've seen some webchat frontends that make it really easy to start. but people expect voice chat, embeds, etc so IRC doesn't really cut it anymore (which I find very sad)
The world they want is an ideal that hasn't been achieved yet.
It only makes sense to hobble yourself by not taking advantage of the existing infrastructure if your ideology holds existing infrastructure to be inherently immoral not merely substandard.
Private centralized spaces are less than perfect, but they're okay to use while you work to make something better.
The problem of decentralized/user-controlled communication is adjacent to the problem that this is trying to solve, so it's not even like "We're working on this, it's just not ready yet", they chose to use a centralized option over a decentralized one that is ready.
In this specific instance, I would argue that it is immoral to use Discord[0], as it disregards the efforts of a production ready project serving the same goal, in a different space.
[0] Perhaps not quite immoral, but pushing that direction. It certainly casts doubt on their actual aspirations.
Edit: I would like to thank you for your comment however, as it did make me stop and think for a while, and better consider my position on this topic.
So yet another NFT provider.
But nothing in there prevents me from stealing your media, changing it slightly and reposting it, grabbing all that sweet sweet Zora cash, or whatever you would call that. I recommend to call it Karma, you know, like what you get for reposting on Reddit ;)