Would an ActivityPub enabled fediverse alternative of Discord be possible?
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matrix is only slow if you use the synapse homeserver.
I don't use the Synapse home server and it's still very slow.
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There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.
Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.
If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?
Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular
I've barely ever used Discord, I'm not entirely sure I understand how it works, because individuals host their own servers? "Join my Discord server." So, Discord as a business provides software and...user account brokerage? In terms of functionality, it does basically what an IM client/forum engine and Ventrilo did?
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I've barely ever used Discord, I'm not entirely sure I understand how it works, because individuals host their own servers? "Join my Discord server." So, Discord as a business provides software and...user account brokerage? In terms of functionality, it does basically what an IM client/forum engine and Ventrilo did?
A discord "sever" is a community space running on Discord's servers. There are forum areas managed by the community owner, including permant voice/video channels, DMs and group chats are enabled through shared community involvement or direct friend requests but otherwise external to the communities management. Moderation is handled on per community basis barring servwr ToS violations.
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although XMPP doesn’t necessarily natively have video call, usually you’ll have an accompanying TURN server
The same is true for Matrix and the popular Ejabberd xmpp server has a Stun/Turn server built in, which makes it even easier to setup than what you have on Matrix.
P.S.: Matrix also isn't a messaging protocol. It is a distributed database protocol that has been abused for making a messenger with it.
Right. This is why you CAN do video, audio, messaging, 3d object data, etc using the same backend servers. It does require some complexity on the dev side too because of that
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Its buggy, it just doesn't really look like Discord. It is a chore for new users to use. There's no useful community discovery.
That sounds like a frontend issue. Not a protocol issue
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That sounds like a frontend issue
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There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.
Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.
If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?
Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular
If i understand correctly, Discord is a chat application for private and group chats. There is Matrix chat that works reasonably well as a replacement.
It's decentralized, open source software, and i've used and tested it for at least a year now. It works well enough. It does not use the ActivityPub protocol though.
Mind that Matrix chat tends to private/group chats, which means they're not typically visible to everyone else. Which means it would make little sense to try to embed them into the rest of the fediverse, which is openly accessible.
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Well yes, that's the problem. Matrix is just used for tech/troubleshoot issues and it's buggy as hell.
It isn't a social experience like discord. It is a gap in the fediverse
matrix can absolutely be a social experience. check out the 196 blahaj chat: https://matrix.to/#/#196-Blahaj:chat.blahaj.zone
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matrix can absolutely be a social experience. check out the 196 blahaj chat: https://matrix.to/#/#196-Blahaj:chat.blahaj.zone
Its uses are few and far between. It seems to me a hypothetical federated Discord client needs to adopt the same model as the fediverse with community lookup functions where the discord-like instances would federate with other discord instances and be able to browse rooms, in something akin to the Discord Discovery tool.
Matrix just doesn't offer that at all.
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I think the reason why Matrix doesn't use AP is mostly to draw a clear line between public and private activity. Because if you use one protocol for both, the temptation is high to mix them and that leads to unclean implementations which leak messages. I think it should stay divided.
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Many people use it as forums.
which tbh is a bad idea from the start
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Its uses are few and far between. It seems to me a hypothetical federated Discord client needs to adopt the same model as the fediverse with community lookup functions where the discord-like instances would federate with other discord instances and be able to browse rooms, in something akin to the Discord Discovery tool.
Matrix just doesn't offer that at all.
yeah content discovery sucks unfortunately
I do think there maybe should be better lists and indexes of stuff that shows you related content on the Fediverse.
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Well yes, that's the problem. Matrix is just used for tech/troubleshoot issues and it's buggy as hell.
It isn't a social experience like discord. It is a gap in the fediverse
I exclusively use Matrix for social experiences. I’m in servers and group chats for clubs, communities, and even Lemmy instances. Works great
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I exclusively use Matrix for social experiences. I’m in servers and group chats for clubs, communities, and even Lemmy instances. Works great
How did you find them? How many people are in them? There's no hub for community discovery for matrix-based communities, to my knowledge.
As I said in another comment: It seems to me a hypothetical federated Discord client needs to adopt the same model as the fediverse with community lookup functions where the discord-like instances would federate with other discord instances and be able to browse rooms, in something akin to the Discord Discovery tool.
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which tbh is a bad idea from the start
I didn't say it isn't. I much rather use traditional forums that are indexed on searchers.
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I exclusively use Matrix for social experiences. I’m in servers and group chats for clubs, communities, and even Lemmy instances. Works great
Do you use voice chats in the same way that Discord allows you to? Can you hop in to an empty voice channel without having to initiate an end to end call?
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There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.
Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.
If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?
Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular
too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord
Uhhh, Discord's user experience is one of the most chaotic fever dreams I've ever come across, and is a large part of what makes me want to get away from it (among many other reasons).
One of the really frustrating things about Discord is that people are using it for things that it's not good for. Like documentation, or really anything where a new reader is looking to find a persistent source of information. Chat should be good at chat, and wikis should be easily accessible on the open web - not in an obscure digital group that has to be joined to be seen.
It's like when people start a business and then use facebook as their "site." No that is not a site, and you know what, I don't want to shop there anymore either. Same energy.
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There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.
Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.
If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?
Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular
There's actually shoot.
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although XMPP doesn’t necessarily natively have video call, usually you’ll have an accompanying TURN server
The same is true for Matrix and the popular Ejabberd xmpp server has a Stun/Turn server built in, which makes it even easier to setup than what you have on Matrix.
P.S.: Matrix also isn't a messaging protocol. It is a distributed database protocol that has been abused for making a messenger with it.
P.S.: Matrix also isn’t a messaging protocol. It is a distributed database protocol that has been abused for making a messenger with it.
Harsh, but true
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There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.
Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.
If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?
Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular
Discord? UUUUGGHHHHH. For chat, XMPP already exists.
But overall, one of the issues of "why does an alternative to XYZ not exist?" is that usually, when we talk about those corporate jails, XYZ does too much for anyone to up and create a 1:1 alternative. This is valid both in and out the Fediverse. Discord is currently a chat platform, a video platform, a streaming platform, a documentation platform (ugggh), an issue tracker (UUUGHHH), an FBI / ICE honeypot, and a picture gallery.
For unreasonable people (the majority of the internet as it would seem), even lacking one of those features is somehow a "deal breaker", when it actually makes perfect sense in terms of maintainability and independence to design and work up an alternative to characteristics such as chat or videos individually, rather than to platforms. Text chat? IRC / XMPP. Video calls? Jitsi. Picture gallery? phpgallery. Documentation? Wikis. Issue tracker? Forgejo / Chiselapp. ICE? Get Kirk'd.
So for people who create solutions for their own scale and usually without a profit or a means to operationally maintain the project, they are at a severe disadvantage that people won't put up the effort to even learn there is an alternative. I'm guessing partly it's because YT, TikTok and ChatGPT have turned people's attention span to brainrot to such a degree they can't follow a simple instruction pamphlet with pictures.
