If another service such as Matrix can built similar screen sharing into their applications then I’d be able to convince my friends to make the shift. As it stands there isn’t really a 1:1 equivalent.
Bananas Screen Sharing may one day be able to replicate that functionality, though at the moment it does not pass-through application audio (The dev mentioned they hadn't implementet that because it's difficult to do on Mac OS, but seems to be viable for Windows/Linux), but it does pass through the microphone.
I expect MatrixRTC will be capable of screen sharing if it isn't already, so this is probably just a matter of time, so long as Matrix gets the sponsors they need to continue their work.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel, open standards with similar or better capabilities already exist. Don't create another silo, contribute to making e.g. XMPP clients better.
Developers want to cash out. Company going public. Will most likely have to do some things to keep investors happy, involving what is now known as enshittification.
The ads are so far sufficiently unobtrusive to still use the platform, and I've no need of Nitro, but should that change, I'll flee elsewhere.
Discord just last week shut down a server that was my main local friend group, and we had to scramble to reconstitute it. At this point, we're not even looking to advertise it. It's a low-volume server with only six left-of-Overton from the core group, but it taught us that you always want more than one method of contact, as a a rugpull can happen at any time off any whim.
but it taught us that you always want more than one method of contact, as a a rugpull can happen at any time off any whim.
Being on the internet long enough taught me instead (by having seen countless providers rise and fall since the early 00's) to self-host my comms and prefer open federated protocols. I switched to XMPP, I have no regret, everyone that matters made the move painlessly a decade ago or so.
Well, that remains a question. He didn't start the server, but it was shut down precisely two years after it was created. And the woman who started it maintains an active Discord account, so it's not on account of that. He messaged me at 3 a.m. from Europe asking for a link to get back in, at which point we both realised the server was just gone.
It was the six of us who've all hung out plus occasional random folks who believe the economy works for them. They didn't last long.
But pretty much all of these organizations have their own Discord servers, don't they?
So why would it matter so much what the parent company does? If some changes are seen as unacceptable one could simply just not apply them to one'a own server. (It's not like the Discord company could force anyone to run some particular software on their server. How would that even work.)
I don't understand why people care what Discord does. If they do enough unwelcome changes the people who run their own servers will simply detach from the parent company.