It’s pretty spot on.

Most nerds I know (including sysadms) started out on Android because of all the reasons you’d expect. Most of them now use iOS / iPadOS because, at home, they want things to Just Work - and have the available income to throw at the problem. Desktop-wise many of them have used Macs on and off, but it seems like lately they trend Windows and Linux again. Probably because macOS has become more hassle than it’s worth with the continued locking down, increased paranoia, lower flexibility and ridiculous storage prices. It used to be that you could work around the storage prices, but these days it’s practically impossible to run programs from somewhere other than Applications if you want your system to stay up to date. Macs just aren’t the great *nix alternative that they used to be, and while Windows is still pretty awful for my use, Linux as a desktop/gaming system is getting better every day. At least so far. I miss when macOS became more useful for every release. The big releases these days break more than they fix for me.

Good thing some clients will remain incompatible with the new features, then. On the other hand, IRC clients have always been some of the most configurable pieces of software with lots of options to choose from, so I am sure it will be possible to avoid most of the nonsense even in v3 clients.

No reactions, emojis, previews of images and videos? Sounds like heaven.

Discord is creepy if you examine the information they like to collect. On Android, for example, there are 11 unique data points. That’s not just an email.

Personally, if I see a software project on Discord, I nope out. I have made very few exceptions and every time I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth it. Discord isn’t really good for anything other than what it was designed for: Persistent IRC - plus a voice chat option. It’s perfectly fine to chat with a bunch of friends and play some games together. But that is about it.

It is terrible for tracking subjects, for finding information, for storing information, and for engaging in chats across more than one instance. It is unintuitive to navigate, and while they have made improvements, it is up to the user to make a server bearable to navigate by hiding the flood of channels that the average instance contains. Even so, Discord will still try to show you things you have explicitly disabled as a “suggestion”. Discord is bloody intolerable.

So yes, you may grow a community quickly because the people who already use Discord can jump on there. You will, however, lose a bunch of users wiling and able to use a better option who are, most likely, more experienced web users - and sick of the Discord bullshit. While this certainly includes me, I have seen the same sentiment again and again in my feeds. Power users tend to loathe Discord.

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I was entirely oblivious to the existence of custom content.