This is just me, but aside from being complete proprietary spyware, I've got problems with the culture it's designed to cultivate.
On a normal text-based chat like IRC or XMPP, you chat with people, maybe share files and that's about it, the way it should be.
On Discord, everything is grabbing your attention in this pavlovian game where the actual substance of what you're talking about is secondary, on the other hand it's more about cultivating attention towards yourself with reactions and memes. It also promotes segregating everyone into a caste system with "roles" and whatnot. If you've ever been around you'll notice how quickly people sardonically accept Discord as being the name-brand platform for predators and sex perverts.
I think a lot of the problem with kids on the net these days has to do with the way they chat with people like this. When you're on IRC you've got a place to "post into the void", where what you say is ultimately ethereal and even if two people are flaming one day they can go back to being buddies the next day cause it doesn't really matter. When you're on Discord everything you say is logged, and the air hangs thick around you cause what you're supposed to say is meant to matter to someone, even though most people are just cultivating this emotional persona detached from their real selves. So you get this really toxic cesspool as a cultural penchant built-in.
I've never really connected with that many people I've met through Discord the on the same level as IRC-adjacent people, FWIW.
On a normal text-based chat like IRC or XMPP, you chat with people, maybe share files and that's about it, the way it should be.
On Discord, everything is grabbing your attention in this pavlovian game where the actual substance of what you're talking about is secondary, on the other hand it's more about cultivating attention towards yourself with reactions and memes. It also promotes segregating everyone into a caste system with "roles" and whatnot. If you've ever been around you'll notice how quickly people sardonically accept Discord as being the name-brand platform for predators and sex perverts.
I think a lot of the problem with kids on the net these days has to do with the way they chat with people like this. When you're on IRC you've got a place to "post into the void", where what you say is ultimately ethereal and even if two people are flaming one day they can go back to being buddies the next day cause it doesn't really matter. When you're on Discord everything you say is logged, and the air hangs thick around you cause what you're supposed to say is meant to matter to someone, even though most people are just cultivating this emotional persona detached from their real selves. So you get this really toxic cesspool as a cultural penchant built-in.
I've never really connected with that many people I've met through Discord the on the same level as IRC-adjacent people, FWIW.