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Joined 1 month ago
Cake day: April 2nd, 2025
  • who@feddit.orgtoFree and Open Source Software@beehaw.org•How come nobody has forked Mumble to create a better Discord alternative?English
    15·
    16 hours ago

    Okay, what’s the biggest and most active gamer community on Matrix?

    I don’t know, and don’t really care. I play games mostly with friends. Listening to a large chat room full of random people doesn’t appeal to me at all.

    Regardless of social preferences, I think you’ll find that there is no Discord alternative with public chat rooms as big and active as Discord’s, nor will there be any time soon. The network effect is strong there.

    Nevertheless, we can choose tools that serve us better, and invite others to join us when it’s practical. Ex-redditors have been doing this with Lemmy. Ex-Windows gamers have been doing this with Linux. Shifting away from an entrenched platform is usually slow and gradual, but not impossible.

  • who@feddit.orgtoFree and Open Source Software@beehaw.org•How come nobody has forked Mumble to create a better Discord alternative?English
    15·
    2 hours ago

    Mumble is great, but there are some things that people have come to expect from group chat services that it is not designed to do. For example, running in a web browser, persistent message history, and multi-device access to a single account. Adding such things would be no small amount of work, which is probably the main rason it hasn’t been done. (And, of course, the changes required would make the result incompatible with Mumble.)

    Considering what exists today, I think Matrix has the best chance at becoming a Discord alternative. It already has a lot of the needed features. The new voice/video system (now in beta) looks very promising. And, of course, it also supports self-hosting and end-to-end encryption, both of which Discord lacks.