I recently let my Discord Nitro subscription expire, and this is a tough one for me. I use Discord quite often, but find paying for it very hard to justify due to its privacy policy and investment structure. It has become a rather ubiquitous tool in recent years, which makes me wonder if it is going to result in yet another Twitter fiasco.

Generally, I am ok with paying (and donating) for software services. They have to meet some level criteria for me to feel comfortable, though. For example, if the software and/or service is:

• Open Source / Open Platform
• Lemmy (and selective instances)
• Mastodon (and selective instances)
• Proprietary and/or Centralized, but operated in good faith, with a history and face
• Kagi
• MarsEdit
• Micro.blog
• Ivory
• Privacy respecting by design, with mixed open source / proprietary status
• 1Password
• Proton Mail
• iCloud (select services with advanced security enabled)

Discord is a prime example of something that does not quite fit into any of these categories. Discord does not respect privacy. Discord is not Open Source. Discord is not decentralized. Instead, it is held up by a combination of paid users and investors. This is enough to chase me away. I’m waiting for the inevitable sale of the platform and its data to a big tech conglomerate. The other shoe has yet to drop. Let’s just hope it isn’t placed into the hands of another Elon Musk.