In an apparent effort to boost revenues, gaming social media startup Discord plans to implement ads into its free service. The step is expected in the coming days after 9 years of ad-free experience.
I don't think people on this sub use it, but it's great news for us. The worse it gets the likelier people move on.
If you don't use Discord for voice much, Matrix has a pretty solid bridges you can use.
Hosting your own Matrix server is suprisingly way easier than I though - got a VM on hertzner for like 5$ a month, and there is an Ansible script that takes care of the setup for you. It's also one of those rare cases where someone made an Ansible script that actually works, instead of you getting stuck in dependency-hell (seriously, fuck npm. Not a single docker or ansible tool that has used it ever worked for me out of the box. Python can get simillarly annoying).
They have a pretty easy to follow guide, and the whole setup took me like 20 minutes. I only edited a few options in config.yml (mostly to add Messenger and Discord bridge), and ran the ansible, and it worked at first try.
So I could at least ditch both messenger and discord apps from my PC and phone, without having to convince anyone to quit their poison - with only issue being that you can't use Discord voice. And that the messenger bridge is still unreliable sometimes, but those are still minor inconviniences in comparison to my deep-seated hate for Meta.
Of course - Meta still gets my chat data and content, same as Discord. But at least they don't get anything else from my phone or PC.
Matrix bridges are nice until you realize that you have to be a mod in the server to add the bridge, you need to do it not only for every Discord server you want to use on matrix, but every channel as well. It's a huge chore. And ofc it doesn't work with Discord DMs.
Not blaming Matrix or the matrix bridge developers here because it's not their fault. But let's be honest: matrix bridges are a pain to set up for Discord and for a majority of people aren't worth the hassle. Moving to Matrix would be the better choice if at all possible
you need to do it not only for every Discord server you want to use on matrix, but every channel as well. It’s a huge chore. And ofc it doesn’t work with Discord DMs.
This wasn't my experience at all - all I had to do was message the Matrix bot with servers I want to join (I'm not a mod on any of them), and it bridged all channels in that server. Also, Discord DMs are working fine.
I'm using the mautrix bridge, which doesn't use a bot or anything like that, but uses your Discord session instead.
you can do a puppet bridge for your discord account so it bridges all the guilds your in to matrix without needing discord guild admins to add the bridge to it