[smoldesu]

Innovation may be inherently controversial, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay attention to the controversy. People who are vocal enough to voice a concern about your product probably care on one level or another, and ignoring them is tantamount to ignoring a support query. If you want your innovation to mean something, you still need to listen and work with your community to build something better. All of the biggest innovators have done this: Discord pivoted to more inclusive branding after their original "gaming" market expanded, and Microsoft headed into the server provisioning/cloud market when developers suggested that they preferred Microsoft as an SAAS. Being flexible enough to meet your users demands is how you take innovation to the next level, so make sure that your controversy counts.

[tasogare]

> biggest innovators

> Discord

We’re speaking of a chat application...

[smoldesu]

Love it or hate it, Discord changed the chatting landscape. They're approaching 100 million active users and have inspired countless other chat clients and software like Matrix's Element, or Slack. They may not have built Rome here, but I'd argue that the best innovation just repositions pieces that are already on the table.

[mbrodersen]

Discord is a small improvement on already existing ideas. The number of users has nothing to do with “innovation”. Unless of course you think toilet paper is “innovative” because it has more users than Discord.

[Arathorn]

both slack and element significantly predate discord...

[grey_earthling]

Why do you think it is that Discord has taken off more than Element in terms of ubiquity, given that Element theoretically had a head-start?

Or, what can advocates of Matrix (and open protocols more generally) do to try to replicate that success and catch-up?