Discord rambles

This is my contribution to the conversation about WhatsApp, the uproar about their recent policy change, and the concept of user domestication.

Rohan Kumar: WhatsApp and the domestication of users

I wonder why people have a tendency to generally lack awareness about how their rights. Or how those rights are being violated. Furthermore, why are people like me, quite often painted off as conspiracy nutters, despite the Snowden documents being a thing.

Today's example is Discord. Ever since I jumped out of Microsoft's ecosystem of dodgy proprietary software, Discord has been a thorn in my side. I don't really have a choice but to use it, as the people I talk to are stuck in its grasp. As a result, I am also still stuck in its grasp. I think it's rather sad that, despite me pointing out the problems with Discord and running a Matrix server, most people still stick to it.

I had managed to get those people to stop using WhatsApp and instead move over to Signal. Way I accomplished this, was by first telling a few people to stop using WhatsApp and move over to Signal. Somewhere before the latest Facebook scandal came to the surface, I stopped using WhatsApp completely. So I started to tell people that if they wanted to have more in-depth conversations with me, they'd have to move over to Signal.

At some point, this idea gained critical mass in my group of friends, and I managed to get all of them to at the very least install Signal. The problem with Discord, is the fact that the people I care about there, are part of a much larger group. Moving over even a single person, let alone gaining critical mass, seems impossible.

User domestication (again)

This is a great example of user domestication. One of the main reasons for them not wanting to move over to my "hipster" platform, is not being able to communicate with the people who still use Discord. If Discord were an open source product, no doubt people would've made better integration methods for it then Matrix currently offers (I might just be an idiot, but I haven't manged to get any of the bridges to work). But then Discord itself wouldn't be much of an issue, I would probably host a Matrix instance simply for the hell of it.

Popularity Contests

Thing I now wonder about is regarding what would be necessary for an open platform to become more popular then the locked in platform. Honestly, I don't really know. The only thing I can currently think of as a potential thing, would be closed platforms ending up in enough scandals for open platforms to piggy-back off of. Hopefully at some point gaining critical mass. But so far, that seems like a future that will only happen in my wildest dreams.

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