[littlestymaar]

> By your reasoning, any backend that’s not accessible directly by the user is proprietary

I've never said such thing. It doesn't matter if you can access things directly: proprietary means it's not FOSS, that's it.

> Discord can be run in the browser and is accessible via APIs. I think it’s as open as any other web app by a company that has a commercial interest

You need an account to browse Discord, which they can take away from you anytime. If you lose your account you lose your membership to any invite-only communities you belong to, which can be a big deal if you don't have other means to communicate with them to get invited back.

Also, Discord isn't indexable by search engines. So, no there's a big difference between Discord and most web forums.

Also, I don't have anything in particular against Discord (it's miles ahead of Slack in UX for instance, which I hate with a passion), but when people advertise themselves as fans of the old web, and link to their Discord, one can only smirk from the irony.

[iCarrot]

Kinda weird to start talking FOSS when the website itself never ever claimed to have anything to do with FOSS.

What does search engines indexability have to do with FOSS? There's no shortage of old school forums locked behind membership system, not indexable by any search engines.

Also Discord is an instant messaging software and not "web". It just happens to have a web frontend. It's OK to be nostalgic of the old web but not the old instant messaging softwares.