This seems to be a common opinion that I didn’t think much of until recently. But now I do. And I don’t like Discord because of it. Well, I didn’t like Discord beforehand but now I dislike it more.
This isn’t a complaint against Discord for its proprietary nature or terrible privacy policy. I dislike Discord a lot more for those reasons, but that can be a whole separate post. What this opinion is about is Discord replacing forums and knowledge bases.
The problem
Let’s say you want to access some knowledge base to learn about something. It could be literally about anything: cooking, biking, programming, woodworking, fixing cars, yoga, how to speedrun a video game, how to exterminate a pest infestation from your house. Think of every possible activity that a knowledge base might be handy; the list is infinite.
The classic way to access this information was through books and physical people. Then came forums and online encyclopedias. And then came Discord. That last part is the problem.
The problem of Discord becoming too big is not that everyone is using it, but that Discord is being used for the wrong reason: people are using it as a wiki and knowledge base.
Found a subreddit about a hobby you want to learn about? They have their own Discord server. Found an obscure Github repo with no wiki or documentation? They have a Discord server instead. Want to join a video game Discord server to learn and talk to players? Which one of the thousands will you choose?
Hell, the “forum on Discord” problem is so widespread that Discord themselves officially implemented a forum-like function.
Arguments against Discord
So as you can tell, I don’t like how Discord is replacing traditional online forums. I’ve come to this conclusion after being forced to see “Discord-walls” on multiple occasions. Here are the more detailed reasons for why.
Ephemeral nature
Discord is first and foremost an instant messaging and communications platform. Everyone communicates in real time, messages get buried fast, there are voice calls that don’t get recorded, and the vast majority of posts are shitposts that don’t have any useful information to begin with.
A program made for instant messaging and communications was not designed to be a website like Reddit. On Reddit, comments are posted on minute-long intervals, not seconds. Posts are archived, kept forever (in theory), and are searchable. You wouldn’t maintain accessible information through a text messaging program, it should be on a platform that is more static and long lasting.
Search engine indexing
How many times have you appended “reddit” to your search query to get better results? That’s the power of a proper forum and search engine indexing.
Try the same thing with Discord. You’ll get nothing. Discord servers are private, like a library that not many people know of and only members can enter. That doesn’t make sense.
Required log in
This builds off my previous argument. There’s no reason why I need to have an account or log in to see a forum. Posting in a forum? Sure, that can be behind a login wall; that’s fair game. Imagine if Reddit suddenly gated everything behind an account. Remember that Xitter tried the same thing and even they undid that quickly.
UI
And as a side tangent, I personally really dislike Discord’s UI and changes. They keeping changing and worsening the UI. So even if you consider the platform as a forum, it just keeps changing the layout. Imagine if Wikipedia had changes at the same rate, people would lose their minds.
Arguments for Discord
Of course, only bashing on Discord doesn’t make for a fun argument. So here’s a list of what advantages Discord provides to the end user, from my perspective.
Convenience
Probably the biggest factor.
Discord was designed to be an end user facing program, which means a 5 year old should be able to use it. Using the platform is free, requires minimal effort to get started, and there is no maintenance (for the most part).
In other words, It Just WorksTM.
Mainstream
A lot of people have Discord accounts. It’s the platform inertia phenomenon: everyone has a Facebook account because everyone else has a Facebook account.
Hell, you might be considered weird for not having a Discord account. Ergo, having a Discord server to act as a forum might feel similar to having a Facebook group to acts as an online community.
“Features”
I’ll admit that Discord’s custom emojis are nice. And I guess the platform is good enough for some that they actually pay a subscription for the service. There has to be some feature that Discord does well to be so popular, and maybe the emojis are part of the reason. Though I wouldn’t know much because I barely use the platform.
Discord is a messaging platform
My main frustration with Discord is its misuse. It works just fine as a messaging/voice call platform, which it was meant to be. But even the bolted on forum feature can’t really save Discord from its forum substitution problem.
Discord is ephemeral, volatile, and you can’t access it publicly. That’s the opposite of how a forum should work. The right tool needs to be used for the right job.