There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.
Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.
If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?
Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular
If i understand correctly, Discord is a chat application for private and group chats. There is Matrix chat that works reasonably well as a replacement.
It’s decentralized, open source software, and i’ve used and tested it for at least a year now. It works well enough. It does not use the ActivityPub protocol though.
Mind that Matrix chat tends to private/group chats, which means they’re not typically visible to everyone else. Which means it would make little sense to try to embed them into the rest of the fediverse, which is openly accessible.
Just fyi there is matrix which is federated but it doesn’t use activity pub protocol and it’s not directly a drop in replacement discord. Voice/ video/ screen sharing aren’t quite on the same level as discord.
too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord
Uhhh, Discord’s user experience is one of the most chaotic fever dreams I’ve ever come across, and is a large part of what makes me want to get away from it (among many other reasons).
One of the really frustrating things about Discord is that people are using it for things that it’s not good for. Like documentation, or really anything where a new reader is looking to find a persistent source of information. Chat should be good at chat, and wikis should be easily accessible on the open web - not in an obscure digital group that has to be joined to be seen.
It’s like when people start a business and then use facebook as their “site.” No that is not a site, and you know what, I don’t want to shop there anymore either. Same energy.
I’ve barely ever used Discord, I’m not entirely sure I understand how it works, because individuals host their own servers? “Join my Discord server.” So, Discord as a business provides software and…user account brokerage? In terms of functionality, it does basically what an IM client/forum engine and Ventrilo did?
A discord “sever” is a community space running on Discord’s servers. There are forum areas managed by the community owner, including permant voice/video channels, DMs and group chats are enabled through shared community involvement or direct friend requests but otherwise external to the communities management. Moderation is handled on per community basis barring servwr ToS violations.
