Case in point.. I used to run game servers for maybe over 1000+ guilds over the years I was active. Even talking 10 years ago, people were still using Skype for connecting to games... just because it doesn't fit your use-case doesn't mean the market wasn't competing.
IRC was also in the space. Look at the dozens+ IRC servers which had communities built around them... they've mostly migrated to Discord.
I'd love to know your counter point to such an absolute-claim though... because I positively agree with the author.
I think we might have different definitions of competition. As of July 2020, Discord had over 100-million monthly users. At last count, netsplit.de reports 360k IRC "users". That's not even 1% of the Discord user base and it's shrinking every year. No new significant IRC communities have emerged in at least a decade because it's a dying protocol while Discord adds millions of users every month. Yes, IRC is an alternative to Discord but it's not a competitor (to Discord, or any other protocol) by any stretch of the imagination.
Case in point.. I used to run game servers for maybe over 1000+ guilds over the years I was active. Even talking 10 years ago, people were still using Skype for connecting to games... just because it doesn't fit your use-case doesn't mean the market wasn't competing.
IRC was also in the space. Look at the dozens+ IRC servers which had communities built around them... they've mostly migrated to Discord.
I'd love to know your counter point to such an absolute-claim though... because I positively agree with the author.