I think Microsoft is smarter than that, look at Github for example, people have largely forgotten it's owned by MSFT. They would have left Discord as a gaming platform and used it's tech in Teams instead. Teams is so behind Discord in all areas except video quality.
Very poorly polished stuff, to be honest. Before, they always seemed to take great care in making their core product (and the API for it) great. The only thing I can think of that was similarly unpolished was GitHub Enterprise.
I don't think GitHub staff has forgotten. Actions are straight up Azure Pipelines. The code is a huge mess. If I didn't know better I'd say it's obscured by design. Check out the actions/runner repo if you don't believe me. They polished them very well for the hosted version, but the cracks show if you try to use the self-hosted version.
I can't believe anyone at GitHub is particularly thrilled about having a Microsoft technology that broken imposed on them.
Can I just say, while I believe Discord will die anyway if it IPOs (as with anything that believes in infinite scaling), I would have loved to see Microsoft enact the special fucked up kind of integration that only they can manage
This is how tech startups work, isn't it? Use investors to build a product with no business model, then the founders cash out via purchase or IPO, and soon after the fact that you have no business model comes to light and the product falls apart trying to find a business model, while users move on to the next shiny thing with no business model.
Glad I'm not the only one thinking this. Seems obvious, but I always felt like I was missing something. How is it that most of the tech/SV world is just the same con being run over and over again, yet it keeps working? Does it operate on the same psychological glitch as a lottery? Do the giant corps buying these startups all think "I know how it's been in the past, but surely THIS startup WON'T turn to shit the moment I buy it because it was never a real business to begin with! This time for sure!"
Or are the real suckers the investors, and the corps are just doing these purchases in a performative capacity to keep razzle-dazzling them?
A lot of actual profits have been made by mature tech companies. Valuations seem too high right now, but I don’t think it’s a giant fraud. More like there’s nothing better to invest in.
Yes, the model is entirely built on acquisitions, where discord itself can't be profitable, but part of Microsoft it can deliver value by deepening the mote around everything else.
Many things are only valuable as a public good or part of monopoly. Such is funny relationship between monopolization and socialism.
Discord has a business model: Get people engaged in a community, sell them Nitro so they can boost their communities [1][2]. The "buy benefits for you community" scheme is wildly successful in mobile games, so I wouldn't be surprised if it works well for Discord.
The fact that they are trying to sell/IPO is pretty strong evidence that they are not profitable, I think. But regardless, I will give them massive props for not just doing the ad thing, which is the last gasp of this style of startup before they finish circling the drain. Lookin' at you, Imgur.
I would in all honesty give them even bigger props, as someone who used to be but isn't a fan anymore. They tried to add a game store a la steam into it but realized it didn't get the engagement they'd hoped for so they stopped putting time and effort into it and shut it down.
My first impression when they first added it was that they'd just shove it down people's throats and keep trying to make it work.
I hope I'm not wrong about them getting rid of it again and I've just gotten used to tuning all that out when using discord.
This is what flailing around trying to find a business model looks like. If Imgur was profitable without those ads, they wouldn't be abusing their users like this.
The second they try to monetize discord like a mobile game is the second all of my friends stop using it and hop to the next silicon Valley chat app that pops up
I’d slightly revise your description of the scheme from no business model to a intentional no revenue business model allowing for the valuation speculation to run rampant (i.e. at anytime we could stop investing in our growth, then it’s all profits). Of course by the time they go public like say Uber and set multiple records on quarterly losses and the investors drop the bag on the public it becomes obvious they can’t stop spending or the business will go under so instead they will continue accumulating billion dollar plus losses every quarter so by the time the shit hits the fan original founders and investors are on to the next thing and can always say they took a xx billion dollar startup public and that’s when the company lost its culture and the corporate greed ruined it.
Corporate greed is for sure a problem, but... does Discord even make money? I'm guessing their S-1 will reveal that they are ludicrously unprofitable, and they will actually have to fix that if they go public, corporate greed or no.
In general, I try not to fall in love with free products that seem too good to be true, because the party has to come to an end at some point.
At least on my hardware Skype and Teams are much more responsive than Discord though. And the laptop's coolers get the workout of their lifetime whenever Discord spins up.
They'd probably turn this IM into family friendly safe bay with strictly moderated content - because let's be honest, nowadays anything goes in. Discord accounts at first would be offered an optional merge with MSA and in long time, you'd have to log into using MSA credentials only. Microsoft Discord branding would arrive. There would be a business oriented version created and MS would abandon Teams; basic Discord would have ads related to your activity - you could avoid that (along with telemetry) by purchasing a subscription as the current monetization options would be removed. A special version with github/git related features would be created - for free, but only for those who are really using it in code related tasks.
Yes, but Microsoft would probably prefer to offer such subscription among own plans - like 356, and that would also happen after Discord would get Microsoft branding. It's a pure guess of course but I think it could happen.
Deeper Xbox integration, probably. Microsoft knows the writing is on the wall that Xbox Party Chat usage is way down and a lot of it has been replaced by gamers with Discord.
They know it so well the new Xbox Wireless Headset essentially has a "Discord feature" though obviously not named or marketed directly as that. (It supports dual pairing with a bluetooth phone for "phone calls over game audio", but everyone I know got the message between lines that it supports Discord chat, and were talking about the headset precisely because of that feature.)
Microsoft would have bought Discord for the gaming community and pursued tight integration with the XBox ecosystem. Which could have boosted the platform, but probably not in a way that resulted in a lot of direct revenue.
The S-1 will reveal all, a tight integration with Xbox and not a lot of direct revenue may still ultimately result in a sustainable and viable product, once you go public indefinite quarterly losses don’t get saved by the next funding round at higher valuations.
