I don’t use much social media. I used to have a Facebook account, but I deleted it around 2017. I’ve had thoughts of creating a Twitter account, but never decided to do so. I’ve never had an Instagram, Tiktok, or Snapchat. I used to have a Skype, but that platform is long dead.
At the moment, the only social media I use is Discord, Whatsapp, Mastodon, Youtube, and Linkedin. I have been thinking about deleting my Linkedin, but I’m still weighing the pros and cons, as I will probably still need it if I want to change careers. It’s very unlikely I will leave Whatsapp, as it’s the only social media I use to stay in contact with family and some old friends, not to mention how often it’s used around South East Asia. I’ve been trying to use Mastodon a bit more, but none of my close friends use it at the moment. It’s also a microblogging site, not an active chatroom like Discord or Whatsapp. Youtube is used just to watch videos and subscribe to creators I enjoy, I don’t really interact with anyone on the platform.
That leaves Discord. I use Discord a LOT, like a LOT LOT. Lots of my friends are there, the communities I enjoy are there, it is an active chatroom platform, and I genuinely enjoy using it and am happy with it. It’s probably the one of the only things that I always keep open (the others being Firefox and a terminal), and one that I prioritize on my phone too. This has genuinely made me start thinking about what I’ll do if Discord every goes away.
There’s a lot of controversy related to Discord, such as its moderation and privacy issues. The recent age verification, the scam bot market, CSAM issues, etc. I don’t particularly blame them though, hosting a global chatroom thats used by millions is hard when you have to please different countries with different cultures and different laws, and some of those issues being hard to solve issues like age verification. It’s impossible to make everyone happy.
I also really doubt Discord is making an actual profit. The company is private so it’s impossible to know, but the monetization features such as Nitro or ‘Quests’ (it’s ads) don’t seem too profitable, but I could be wrong. Personally I pay for Nitro myself. When I tell people this, some of them say: “wHy aRe yOu gIvInG A BiLlIoN DoLlAr cOmPaNy yOuR MoNeY”, but remember 2 paragraphs ago, I use Discord a lot and I genuinely enjoy using it, so giving them 5 dollars a month really doesn’t bother me too much. I want them to survive as long as they can. I would rather pay for Nitro rather than have them be bought by Meta or Microsoft or Alphabet etc.
This is why I worry about what might happen if Discord was bought by a big company. I really dislike Meta, so if they bought Discord I genuinely would not want to use the platform anymore.
Yes, I know Whatsapp is owned by Meta. I would love to delete my Whatsapp account, but its so integrated in daily life that its impossible for me to do so.
So at the moment, I have no idea what I would use to replace Discord. Too many of my friends and communities are on there. It would absolutely suck if I have to lose contact with them. Eventually, Discord WILL cease to exist, and hopefully when that happens there will be a replacement that I can use.