alt.hn

4/26/2025 at 5:22:39 AM

Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron is stepping down

https://www.theverge.com/news/654594/discord-new-ceo-jason-citron-humam-sakhnini

by OuterVale

4/26/2025 at 2:06:18 PM

Praying FOSS can step up, if Matrix/Element plays their cards right, this could be huge for them

by jarbus

4/26/2025 at 2:46:23 PM

The strategy on Element has been to try to get sustainable by selling secure comms systems for governments - https://element.io/sectors, simply because govts have always been the main folks willing to fund Matrix dev (starting with France back in 2019, then Germany, then US, then UK, then Sweden etc).

Over the last few years we’ve really had to double down on this rather than relying on VC funding.

In terms of competing with Discord, the good news is that in govtech, we’re basically competing against consumer products like Signal and WhatsApp, as well as stuff like Teams. As a result, Element is not that far from a Discord competitor.

On the other hand, right now we are heads down building out stuff like https://element.io/server-suite and adding antivirus to Element Pro, and similar stuff which govts are willing to pay for, in order to keep the lights on. Meanwhile, fun features like custom emoji and discord-style voice rooms are stuck.

The plan is that when we get to break-even we can get back to our mission to provide secure decentralised comms for everyone, not just govts, but right now the focus is purely on being financially sustainable.

That says, if anyone reading this wants to fund us to get back on the broader mission sooner, do let me know!

by Arathorn

4/26/2025 at 2:20:34 PM

We've seen a pretty decent influx at Revolt.

by OuterVale

4/26/2025 at 1:08:34 PM

https://zulip.com/ is good but videoconferencing has to be a 3d party

by terpimost

4/26/2025 at 9:12:22 AM

Well, let the enshittification begin. If we don't like it, we can spin up OSS alternatives.

by rf15

4/26/2025 at 11:58:06 AM

Discord is already pretty terrible now compared to a couple years ago.

But Blizzard Activision style management is a sure fire way to make me leave.

by horsawlarway

4/26/2025 at 1:51:47 PM

What's changed in the last few years? The only thing I've noticed is the constant nudging to upgrade so I can use custom emojis from different servers.

by pavel_lishin