Discord have announced that beginning in March, they're starting a global rollout of forced age verification to access all features of the platform.
  • commander@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    4 hours ago

    I know Element sucks compared to Discord but with more users and potential funding interest from that user base growth, it can get a lot better and snowball to fast improvements. Blender was the butt of jokes until version 2.8. Like 15 years of being easily dismissed as major commercial production worthy. Element can get better. It’s the story of pretty much all the well regarded general consumer targeted open source software we use today

    • jaselle@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 hour ago

      I feel like Matrix already hit the “elbow point” where it’s getting good fast. It’s very usable, I have ~10 contacts I regularly communicate with on Matrix.

    • who@feddit.orgEnglish
      3·
      3 hours ago

      I know Element sucks compared to Discord

      Only if you don’t care at all about privacy, agency, or continued access to your communities regardless of corporate whims.

      Element can get better.

      Yes, as can other Matrix clients, and the network itself. And they are. :)

    • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
      9·
      4 hours ago

      Also cancelled mine. I don’t suspect this change will actually directly affect me personally, but it’s the final straw on a big pile of straw. I know plenty of people here will admonish those of us that were paying for it in the first place, but better late than never I say.

      Not entirely sure what I’m going to transition my group to. It’s quite likely we won’t actually have one replacement, but many. We used text, voice, video, and screensharing on Discord (plus many other, though less important features). I don’t know of an alternative that does all of it.

  • towerful@programming.devEnglish
    10·
    5 hours ago

    I think this is the a major step in discords plan to be a service to games (ie business-to-business).
    They are positioning themselves to be an age-verifying platform for games, alongside in-game chat, in-game VoIP, in-game store and game community.

    At some point, games are going to have to require age verification. It’s just the way the “protect the children” bullshit is going (instead of “enable the parents to raise their kids”, which is far to socialist and progressive) Or game shops will. But if you don’t sell your game, that bypasses game shops. And if cracks can bypass purchasing, then… It’s on the game to comply with laws.
    If there is in-game chat: needs age verification.
    If there is in-game voip: needs age verification.

    At some point, discord is going to roll out this massive suite of dev tooling that “just works” for devs creating multiplayer games with voip, chat, in-game purchases, gifting in-game purchases to friends, friends lists, out-of-game chat, game communities etc. while also offering age verification.
    It already does a lot of that.
    They are getting ahead of the age verification laws so they offer a very simple path for developers to “just pay discord” to skip a HUGE legal minefield, and get a bunch of functionality for whatever cut discord decides .

  • Auster@thebrainbin.org
    11·
    6 hours ago

    For those that can’t (or at least for now won’t) self-host, any suggestions on medium-sized #Matrix servers?

    Or at least some database on those so users can check more easily, similar to the database sites for the ActivityPub?

    • who@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Since you mentioned self-hosting, I guess you’re talking about Matrix homeservers. Some are listed here:

      https://matrix.org/ecosystem/hosting/

      (Note that what Discord calls a “server” is not what anyone else in the networking community calls a server; it’s a confusing misnomer. Matrix calls it a space, but calling it a community would be understood by most people as well. Also, what Discord calls a “channel” is what Matrix calls a room.)

      • Auster@thebrainbin.org
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Meant instance 😅

        Also luckily I’ve been training myself to not use the word “servers” for Discord for years now. Linguistics as hobby and computer habits making me bothered that they’re repurposing the word I understand as a computer/datacenter that acts as provider and all that.

        But about your site, that isn’t what I asked for. I’m asking about a site that tracks total users and/or monthly active users, or medium-sized servers going by those metrics, like e.g. FediDB does. That page from Matrix.org, at least on phone, is more institutional, like a more resistance-free entry point for people curious.

  • 0xtero@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    5 hours ago

    IPO is clearly closing in fast. Enshittification intensifies. The VC’s need to get their ROI out so they can move to the next grift. Apparently they’re also going to have “age inference model that runs in the background” (read: AI) that pops in and hits your with that age verification if it determines you’re actually not acting like a teen.