[cortesoft]

When I was using Vent and Teamspeak you had to actually host the server, as I recall... so someone had to set it up and manage it, or you could pay a third party to do it, but that was always too expensive for my friends and I.... discord is a lot easier to set up your own server and find and discover other servers

[bradlys]

Yep. This is the major differentiator to me and it's obvious why it caught on after that. When I heard about Discord I was like, "Weird, so many people are hosting their own servers or paying to host a server now? Why did it catch on now? More affordable?" Once I learned it was all free... kinda obvious.

[unethical_ban]

"free"

Sure there is Nitro, but I believe data mining is part of the devil's bargain.