I remember having a discussion with the ceo of discord on their api server. The statement was something of "we will never sell user data". But our points of "okay but how about when you sell discord?" fell on deaf ears.
Discord does not allow you to delete your messages in mass. If you exit a server all of your messages, images, etc, are still there. Even if you delete your account. Servers can only delete up to some X amount of time if they choose to.
I have no doubt that just like facebook buying Oculus the promises of any sale will be voided in the name of money.
We have to remember that when you build products with other people's money, that money has to come back, and it has to come out of it's users somehow.
A few years ago I had thought that an acquisition of this nature was obviously coming sooner or later, but the pool of potential buyers got thinner as Discord gained more and more of their own leverage and influence. At this point I don't think Discord needs to exit in this way, but it still might be a very appealing option.
If the deal ends up occurring, I'd have to bet it is with either Microsoft or Facebook, both contingent on antitrust (although I feel like they'd be hard on FB here, but not MS, for whatever reason, likely due to media influence). Although other contenders could theoretically include Google or Amazon, it's a bit harder to imagine. Tencent is already a minor investor as well, but selling to a Chinese company would be particularly rough (Same for ByteDance). For these reasons I'd bet on Microsoft, not that my bet matters in the slightest.
Additionally, a lot of Discord users have just keenly realized who it is that actually holds power over their favorite platform, including a large slice of their online social life and a plethora of personal information, from every character they have typed in a direct message to every click they have made in the app, and it is certain not the users themselves. But, at least the "We will not sell your data" clause will have been technically correct (the best kind of correct, of course).
As someone with no experience whatsoever on economics (i.e., I might not be seeing something critical), I think Amazon is not that weird as a potential buyer: they already own Twitch, and there's probably a huge overlap between the two userbases. They'd have a pretty strong hold on two distinct parts of the gaming community.
(In response to yourself and the other Amazon reply) I mostly agree, especially given Twitch and the potential futures ecosystems there. I think it might be a bit harder with antitrust as well, but don't ask me why that is the case, but it reminds of Congress having antitrust hearings where they drag in Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple, but constantly never included Microsoft, which now seems to be the most likely buyer).
Amazon is the ideal candidate given they missed out on (if they were trying) with Slack. $10B where Slack went for ~$30B, they can keep consumer Discord with some kind of Twitch integration, and charge $7 per user per month for Discord Enterprise with SSO and integrations with AWS (think Alexa chatbot stuff they keep pushing) and other enterprise apps.
Honestly I wish they would just go public. I'd invest at IPO and start paying for Nitro if they did. There's no need for them to get bought by one of the big companies to be a successful company providing a ton of value. I think there is a reasonable path to profitability and long term sustainability, especially if they move into providing premium server features that official servers for games, run by the companies themselves, can use.
That said, if it's gonna be one of the big tech firms, I'd prefer Microsoft, personally. I see them as a lesser of evils in today's landscape.
In my opinion, discord has been so successful because it’s private. A big tech company trying to take the reign on discord’s success sounds disastrous. Discord is hailed for its ingenuity, flexibility, and community driven user experience above all. Advertisements would plague the platform.
Discord also does not compete with clubhouse, or any other major social platforms. Nobody is choosing to spend more time on clubhouse over the likes of Twitter or discord. If anything, they all complement each other. I find out from clubhouse talks through Twitter and discord.
Discord was never private, I don't know how you got the impression is? Everything you ever write or do is on permanent record and has been from the start..
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 47.1 ms ] threadDiscord does not allow you to delete your messages in mass. If you exit a server all of your messages, images, etc, are still there. Even if you delete your account. Servers can only delete up to some X amount of time if they choose to.
I have no doubt that just like facebook buying Oculus the promises of any sale will be voided in the name of money.
We have to remember that when you build products with other people's money, that money has to come back, and it has to come out of it's users somehow.
If the deal ends up occurring, I'd have to bet it is with either Microsoft or Facebook, both contingent on antitrust (although I feel like they'd be hard on FB here, but not MS, for whatever reason, likely due to media influence). Although other contenders could theoretically include Google or Amazon, it's a bit harder to imagine. Tencent is already a minor investor as well, but selling to a Chinese company would be particularly rough (Same for ByteDance). For these reasons I'd bet on Microsoft, not that my bet matters in the slightest.
Additionally, a lot of Discord users have just keenly realized who it is that actually holds power over their favorite platform, including a large slice of their online social life and a plethora of personal information, from every character they have typed in a direct message to every click they have made in the app, and it is certain not the users themselves. But, at least the "We will not sell your data" clause will have been technically correct (the best kind of correct, of course).
(Edit: clarification)
Amazon will have a large vertical slice of gaming culture that Steam simply doesn't.
Given Steam chat languished for years and is still 1/100th of Discord, I don't think Valve care.
Potential acquirers I could think: Roblox, Elic, SalesForce (Slack), Twilio (Segment CRM), Twitter, Zoom, Peloton (?)
That said, if it's gonna be one of the big tech firms, I'd prefer Microsoft, personally. I see them as a lesser of evils in today's landscape.
Discord also does not compete with clubhouse, or any other major social platforms. Nobody is choosing to spend more time on clubhouse over the likes of Twitter or discord. If anything, they all complement each other. I find out from clubhouse talks through Twitter and discord.