Sik wrote:
Yes, I also hate that Discord is a completely centralized service, but things stagnated with both IM and IRC and when stagnation happens in open protocols what happens is that some centralized service will pick up the need and hog everything (and since everybody goes there, it'll be hard to convince people to even consider trying something else if an alternative comes up).
I still don't understand why open versions of something die, and then as soon as a centralised version comes along everyone's interested in it again.
Rusky wrote:
Aside from being niche, they are also horrible to use because they require a persistent connection which doesn't work out well on mobile devices. IRC cannot get around this without changing the protocol.
IRC can be supplemented with logging and bouncers. Heck if enough people were interested in the protocol it would be easy to develop a set of extensions that allow downloading a backlog of conversation when connecting or refreshing (assuming that there's a logging server somewhere in the network). But for some reason nobody extends existing protocols and standards, they always make their own things and then use them to take over a market.
Rusky wrote:
That's not how most online games work. Minecraft is an exception.
That's how multiplayer games worked a few years ago last time I had any experience with them. Why do you think people talk about port-forwarding and complained about carrier-grade NAT? Because of gamers trying to run servers or host multiplayer games on their computer.