I cancelled my nitro years ago because what exactly is the benefits that I can’t do with being a freeloader? Besides I’m sure they scrape all my data anyways
A lot of teens in the US have jobs; I've worked since I was 14. At $10/month that's like 1 fast food meal, and if you use it as your major chat platform that's easily worth it for the convenience it offers you. And teens don't generally have other major bills to pay.
Discord only requires downloading a file, entering your email, clicking an activation link (optional), and opening a “discord server” link. They have completely nailed an easy gaming chat/voice service compared to something like Teamspeak.
Otherwise I guess now you’d be setting up a Matrix server, dealing with port forwards (if you’re not behind CG-NAT) or possibly paying $15/mo for a barebones VPS... You could probably use someone else’s Matrix server, but then there’s the fun of handling voice chat/screen sharing, so now you’re off to figure out hosting Jitsi and setting up DDNS, etc…