I’ve heard Matrix was involved in some crypto bullshit and military operations of some sort. I want an alternative but Matrix is just shady enough all around for me to stay the hell away.
Stoat
It’s FOSS that should be enough
sadly people will forget about this next week
It’s not that they forget. It’s that 98% of its user base won’t care. They will just do whatever and continue on.
Too many companies have invested in discord being their point of contact.
It’s the same as windows 11 killing windows 10. Everyone just moved on.
Yes, you will have a few niche users quit, same as the few who moved from windows to Linux. But not any significant numbers to make any of these companies worry.
require a laser scan of whole body. for security
Definitely uninstalling discord. I hardly use it anyway.
I use it daily, but I’ve now deleted my account and will move on.
I dont put up with this shit.
I always call people over steam. I haven’t used discord in a few month now and don’t miss it
Y’all just aren’t thinking about the shareholders.
I mean I’ve wanted to change anyway since the enshittification started. I think the first thing was a paid avatar/profile decoration store. Annoying enough, but if they’re decent cosmetics and not crazy prices I can understand. I still wish there was an internal, native seeing that would just remove all the visual teasing of paid options, but I can ignore it. (Mainly I hate trying to add an emoji to chat and just seeing pages of emoji from servers that I can’t use on the one I’m on- which is already super annoying, but they put the regular result ones behind all those so you have to either scroll past them or manually switch to the default emoji page- that’s just pure rage bait- default should be first, followed by the ones from that server that you can actually use)
But my main problem was when Nitro showed up.
Unfortunately, of the up and comers none are quite ready yet, and none have the full suite of functionality.
This change actually doesn’t affect me at all, I don’t really engage with any communities. I have one that I use just to mess with admin options and see what kinda choices there are and how it works, one server with a few friends (like 5 regulars counting myself) and one for some of my siblings that we only really use to play Jackbox remotely.
But I still resent the change and have wanted a good alternative ever since subscriptions started.
Note, this is happening for the same reason Reddit started enshittifying much harder all of a sudden. Discord wants to do an IPO and so they’re going to suddenly start squeezing their users to make the numbers look good just in time for that IPO. Their bet is that they have enough momentum that enough people will stick with them long enough for the IPO to succeed, and after that happens, it’s someone else’s problem.
I keep researching alternatives, and every time I circle back around toward Matrix, despite criticisms. Part of it is a question of what everyone is using. I pretty consistently see that groups who use or used to use irc are now using Matrix additionally or as a replacement.
Part of me would like xmpp to be the best answer, but I’ve yet to see an implementation that handles public communities well, particularly for anything that functions at all like Discord. Matrix seems to be at least gaining voice/video chat support?
Using a Matrix room for our family, it has some built-in video call service (I think it’s Jitsi?) that works great for regular family rounds. It has its hiccups too, but nothing we can’t deal with so far.
irc does looks cool BUT its hard to learn and you’ve gotta make your freinds download it
this is not at all what i’m seeing on discord, and I think it’s worthy of note that the article’s sample is Reddit posts in r/discordapp. Discord users who use Reddit in general have a systemic bias that’s close to ours, as opposed to the majority that is young Discord users.
that will do it. was thinking about over-moderation and reddit mentality moderation ideas/power trips. never jumped into tw/reddit/ but the ad buisness model infected everything. no ads and contributions feel good too
Americans- If you’re thinking “this isn’t so bad” please consider that all it takes is a teeny tiny, insignificant api added to the back end with absolutely no notice to users and suddenly the DHS has a database of dissenters, with cross-referenced IDs, photos of faces, chat history, link share history, raw uploaded photos, and approximate locations.
Say no to this. If you need a temporary alternative that’s quick to get going, create a signal group chat with your friends.
Forget DHS or other government agencies, these companies have been shown to be untrustworthy stewards of our data from regular hackers.
I get that discord is used to groom kids and there is a very real risk to allowing children to use it unsupervised, but that means kids devices are the ones that need to be locked down, not the rest of the world.
No argument there. Just feels particularly relevant right now if you know what I mean.
Pain fucking ass but deleted my Discord account. Sure wish had a decent alternative. I see a lot of suggestions just don’t which to try? Any that work great with Linux Debian?
Me and my people are moving to stoat. They’re having some growing pains right now, but I’m sure it’ll smooth out.
Matrix
I don’t like element. It was too laggy. And I was having trouble with the other ones.
Do the people you talk with use Signal?
Only used it when used to game with my kids. So no one I know uses Signal.
They’re already doing it to access the social security website.
The absolute shitload majority of users will not care about this enough to stop using the product
Kinda like reddit
kinda like gamers in general.
Cry, and cry, and cry, and stir up a big shit storm about whatever the latest greatest grievance is… Then continue to speak with their wallet by shoveling hundreds of dollars to the companies doing all the atrocious shit they hate and complain about.
I am one of them. I only use it for comms for gaming. The rest doesn’t matter to me.
So anyone who knows some good altenatives that are either FOSS or EU based?
Making you aware that the age requirement probably comes from the EU. Seeking another EU based solution might introduce the same requirement.
it’s from the uk and texas.
You’ve missed some news my friend, it’s an EU problem too, just the legal and privacy lawyers are fighting much harder so it keeps getting pushed away from going into law.
I’ll try and find some links for you in a sec.of course it’s an eu problem too, but it was the uk that pushed through undercooked regulation that forced everyone to comply.
Cool, but you did say it’s not an EU problem
no i didn’t, i simply noted that the uk and texas had implemented age gating laws.
It’s from everywhere tbh. But the EU is certainly the largest, most forceful block in getting age verification pushed through.
The only upside is that the EU proposal demands ZKP, whereas all others are happy to accept/prefer “prove who you are”. That’s obviously an insane privacy nightmare.
the eu hasn’t put anything to law yet, which at least the uk has. but yeah, of course they’re not blameless.
and Australia
I heard sharkord allows for self-host. It’s super early in development, but it’s browser based for now, and I think if more people get on board and improve it, it’d be a pretty good alternative.
XMPP is the way! There are dozens of us!
Hear me out. Maybe, if you are a parent, its your duty to keep an eye on your child, and exert some control over the spaces and people they interact with?
As a parent: 100% agree
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And how do you , practically, do that?
By paying attention to your child.
Before the internet, parents could exert control by knowing where their children were physically going and who they were talking to over the phone.
Yes, by paying attention to their children.
Even in the '90s and 2000s, parents could control a child’s Internet use by limiting time on the family computer.
Yep, by paying attention to when the kid was on the computer and what they were doing on there.
Nowadays? Just about every child has a tablet or phone. Even the ones who don’t have devices at home, or have their device use monitored at home, have access to school devices.
If you give a child a tablet or phone, you should probably pay attention to what they are doing with it. You wouldn’t just give them a full tool box to play with unsupervised.
Exerting control over a child’s online activity now means monitoring everything they do on every device they have access to, including during the eight hours per day or so that they’re on devices for school work
Yep, by paying attention to the kid.
No parent has time for that.
Bullshit. You need to pay attention to your kids, that’s a basic fucking part of parenting.
And if the child is deliberately trying to hide some kind of illicit online activity, monitoring becomes an order of magnitude more difficult
Maybe you should pay attention to your kid and not let them have unsupervised access to the whole Internet until they are ready for it?
because, again, children have access to their own devices, school devices, their friends’ devices, library devices, and dozens of other devices a parent may not even know about and has no ability to monitor.
Actually, you do have an ability to monitor who your kid spends time with, and when. It’s called parenting.
I’m frankly horrified by the increasing requirements for real identity verification but let’s not pretend being a parent is the same as it was in the '70s.
Let’s not pretend that phones and the Internet only started existing in 2026 too. I was a child in the 90’s, during the real “Wild West” days of the internet. If anything, parents have more tools and controls over what their child can access in 2026 than they did in 2000. There weren’t “child” cellphone controls when I got my first phone. My dad didn’t give me one until I both needed it, and was mature enough to have it. The parental controls on my old Window 2000 machine were laughably easy to defeat. Do you know what kept me out of trouble though? My dad paid attention to when I used the computer, what I was doing on there, and how much I was doing it.
Either parent your kid, or don’t, but it is not my job to make sure your kid is coddled on the internet.
Either parent your kid, or don’t, but it is not my job to make sure your kid is coddled on the internet.
As a recently new parent myself, your post is great. And as a IT nerd, your post is also infuriating.
It is so beyond easy nowadays to monitor and restrict your child’s access to online content. Seeing the post you’re replying to just reminds me of everyone I’ve ever talked to that had X issue and their only response is “throw hands up in the air after trying nothing”.
My kids are still too young to be reasoned with, but my wife and I agreed that:
- No dedicated personal phone until middle school, and it ain’t gonna be some top of the line iphone
- No “tablet kid” bullshit
- No unfettered YouTube access
So far our oldest loves finding our phones and can open the camera app from the lockscreen and she runs around taking photos. So we’ve been letting that slide…but we don’t unlock the phone, so it’s a compromise we’ve made as she LOVES taking photos and seeing photos, which I want to encourage. As for content watching we have a TV with Plex and if there’s something we approve of on YouTube and we want our kids to watch it(Ms. Rachel), then I download the YouTube video and put it on my Plex server. No ads, no algorithm auto played videos, just pure approved content. And we have classic cartoons(Rolie Polie Olie) and disney/pixar/ghibli movies, etc.
Of course if your kid is at school with no phone but its recess and their friend has a phone with zero limits…yeah I can’t control that. But I can at least parent my kid to know that I don’t like that and I don’t want them to participate it.
Also when they’re a bit older(5 or 6 years old) I plan on teaching them internet safety. Don’t post PII, don’t visit certain websites, always use an adblocker/ublock, only talk to people online that you know in real life, etc. I do plan on playing video games with them(if they have an interest) and I know that will eventually lead to online lobbies, but I am hoping to teach them in private Minecraft servers certain etiquette first and go from there.
I’m both excited and terrified, but this is my job as a parent!
It sounds like you are doing the right things.
Long ago, I had a co-worker ask me if fortnite was okay for their kid to play, and I said “I don’t know. Why don’t you go play fortnight with your kid this weekend and see for yourself” and it was like a switch flipped in their head. Playing games online with your kids is something you can do, both to see how people are interacting with them, and to see how they are interacting with other people. I think it is really important too, that kids (especially only-childs) see other people gaming online first hand, so they can see that the person on the other end could just as easily be their mom, or grandpa, or another human being, and not just a bot that they can antagonize without consequence.
Devices given to children can be configured to restrict access to unwanted things. Obviously, school networks already are.
The only uncontrollable thing would be kids seeing things via friends with less observant parents, but that is not a new thing.
No, it’s the not the same but there are options you’re ignoring.
We don’t need to kid-proof all of society. Adults deserve things like freedom and privacy and to not be treated like children.
Exactly, how can you limit a child who knows internet and technology more than their parents? Like, if I was a child I don’t think they could limit me at all
