[popinman322]

Discord nailed reliability, quality, and usability. Its tech is still not worth $10B, though, even if the tech needs to be as good as it is to keep attracting users.

Tangential: I really do fear for them if they get acquired, though. Their tech is built on the actor model, which almost nobody else uses or understands enough to build on. It feels like it's likely that if they merge with Microsoft they'll get rebuilt internally (probably to use Azure) or have their infrastructure replaced with Teams' infrastructure.

[tybit]

Microsoft is surprisingly open to the actor model. They’ve had various implementations of virtual actors after publishing the research, e.g Project Orleans for .NET and Durable ~Functions~ Entities on Azure.

[verst]

Don't forget about DAPR :)

https://docs.dapr.io/developing-applications/building-blocks...

[tomnipotent]

> almost nobody else uses or understands enough to build on

Tools like Akka are very much alive and well.

> t feels like it's likely that if they merge with Microsoft they'll get rebuilt internally

I doubt that, unless they're using a lot of proprietary GCP tech. A Microsoft-owned business using Azure to (most likely) save money is kind of an obvious move, and I don't consider it a bad thing.

> their infrastructure replaced with Teams' infrastructure.

Or maybe even the other way around? Discord's tech is no slouch.

[torbital]

Is there an open source example of the actor model in use, particularly in Go or Java?

It sounds pretty cool but I can't build the mental model of it without an example.

[reducesuffering]

TIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model

[EdwinLarkin]

Does not MS employ people like Sylvan Clebsch? I am sure they employ a lot of folks that understand the actor model.