Microsoft is reportedly in talks to acquire messaging platform Discord
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/micr...0-billion.html
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Microsoft is reportedly in talks to acquire messaging platform Discord
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/micr...0-billion.html
If they do get bought or go public, it might be the push I've been waiting for to move to element. It's federated so you can choose a server to host your rooms in and has true end-to-end encryption. I can almost guarantee that it doesn't work as well as Discord though.
EDIT: does the FG forum "dirty language filter" not apply to titles?
Expletive deleted.
I like it. Microsoft has been doing very well lately in what regards "bought" stuff (Github, VS Code, Azure and Mojang), but I do fear that they change the model. Maybe they're just grabbing it to update Microsoft Teams - one could only hope.
Definitively we know now that Discord won't go bankrupt in a while, if that purchase happens.
Or it will have the same fate as Beam / Mixer. That would be sad, but it is far from happening.
If it remains free, and adds a lot of new functionality (as they have money to throw at it), then I'm all for it. Things they've bought before have gotten radically better feature wise and did not change from "free" for my personal use. Github being the best example.
Do big companies buy stuff to kill off the competition? They do.
But I'm going to go on the data and results of things I've used they've acquired before, based on the thing I've used that they then acquired - GitHub - I'm good with it.
And for sure its long term support will then be assured (as in not in financial trouble).
One thing is for sure, I will never apply some cookie cutter opinion that simply applies to everything in all contexts without the specific data. As in "they big they bad". In this context and case, this should be a good thing.
Also, there is a very real possibility they will go public if they don't sell. And then you have boards that will concentrate on this app only as a profit driver. If they are going to sell then Microsoft is probably the safest place to sell where things do not change on the way their profit model works (as Microsoft will be after the user base and not interested in rocking the boat for profit models on the free users - public boards I think would).
I'm not worried about it. HAsn't happened yet (the purchase). And until it does *shrugs* And then it doesn't matter until MS changes anything (if they do).
i.e. I don't stress over things that haven't happened and I can't control anyway. Plus there are always other solutions.
Microsoft is not the company it once was.
Microsoft shut down their game-focused livestreaming platform less than a year ago.
If they did purchase Discord, it would be filling in a gap in their technology stack.
I don't see much of an issue with this particular endeavor.
My objection is more along the lines of consolidation into the tech giants in general being problematic, not necessarily Microsoft being the one to purchase them.
I use Slack for a couple of my campaigns. It's more oriented toward businessses, but it's worked pretty well thus far for us. I use it for work so I'm more familair with it than other platforms.
I doubt Microsoft will screw up Discord, but they have the potential to do so - Skype didn't improve much after they acquired it... bad interface and no progress whatsoever. All was put in Teams, which is quite unfriendly for personal use for many reasons.
Maybe that leads to better audio quality in Discord (or better server performance for that matter).