how good of an alternative is matrix to discord?

"something running" - do you mean the server binary? Because, yes, if you're using your own server you do need it to be running. Same for the client, I guess? I guess I don't really understand what you meant by that.

Some obscure service relied on it as a support channel and last thing I remember is that matrix server stopped working.

That's an issue with any federated service, yeah. If the server is down, it's down. But as a bonus, unlike Discord, when a server is down you can just move to another. So, honestly, I see that as a boon.

As far as p2p goes, there was an effort to make that a while back, but it looks like people lost interest.

Though, personally I think federation is good enough. That's why I'm on Lemmy/the Fediverse, after all.

yeah you could all pitch in and get one hosted on a server farm somewhere. hard to beat free fitty tho. ive got friends who wanna stay on discord too so im still on it. as long as its free. mostly did the matrix thing to move family chats off off whatsapp. only used whatsapp bc ios sucks about sharing full quality pics and videos with non ios.

i say all of that bc i didnt host it to move from discord, but now that its up i got an easy out if discord goes all in on enshittification

i use coturn for voice on mine

I only mean that the requirements are high enough for someone to stop using it at some point, losing users of that server in the process. It might be different if it didn't require running a server. Or they could choose to host their rooms on some existing server, I guess.

I thought it was called capitalism.

Or they could choose to host their rooms on some existing server, I guess.

I mean, that's sort of the point, right? Don't host unless you want to.

There are lots of great, long lasting servers with open registration out there. This blog post has some good examples:

• envs.net
• tchncs.net

I meant for video. The classic coturn connection is fine for voice - though I wish it had push to talk. 🥲

Enshittificaiton is a uniquely capitalist thing, so..

I told my sister she can use an adblock to block ads while she's browsing. She said "why would i want to do that, ads show me what to buy" she loves personalised ads and the idea that all her interests are being track so she can be served relevant ads.

Not as feature rich, quite buggy, inherently more private but also less usable.

The above compounds when trying to get the non-techies to use it, because sometimes it doesn’t just work

How in the hell has that app gone so far down? This must be a record in enshittification.

Started running a homeserver recently, trying to get non-techy friends to join, can confirm this is difficult (the main one right now being people using old software on their phones, one friend was running iOS 14 for crying out loud)

Once set up I find it OK as a user

I warned my friends that Discord is looking to go public. Just wait, it's going to get a lot worse.

They are the same thing.

If you control the main server, breaking federation is not a problem.

I use Jitsi for my voip / screen share

I'm waiting for the day we get the Black Mirror technology where the ad stops playing when you look away and doesn't start again until you look back at it, forcing you to watch the entire ad all the way through

How do I bot this so I don't see the ads and get free nitro so ads are removed?

I made a few friends switch earlier this year and for our use case it works

Minding we only need a text chat during the day for shitposts, cat GIFs, and the occasional "Gaming tonight ?" "Fuck yeah" "For the Emperor !"

Then we use it for voice chat during the gaming session

To be honest, I don't think we could have switch if they weren't a bit tech-savvy and willing to struggle a bit with the encryption at first (but now it's setted, it works with no issue)