[dijit]

Wanting everything for free is certainly a problem though.

I’m not sure how anything can compete with free and convenient, even things that work really well that take time to set up are hugely inferior because hosting is a cost if nothing else.

If something is free you have a responsibility to be even more diligent to understand what happens when it goes away, is no longer free, or how they plan to extract value from you. Discord is not a charity or government subsidized project.

[anthk]

There are public servers for Jabber working just fine.

[dijit]

and I run an IRC network from my own pocket.

But when I die there needs to be some altruistic nerd who has the capability and desire to take it over.

[anthk]

XMPP does far more than IRC. And, as I said, there are public servers with nice clients everywhere, such as Monocles Chat for Android, Dino for GNU/Linux/BSD, or PSI+ for Windows. With video chat and everything.

[dijit]

my point is about offering services free at point of sale for communities. Not necessarily about what technology I use to do that.

If I stop running the community it will die unless a benefactor steps in as I pay it from my pocket. thats the point.

We are coded to expect services for free but it rests on the altruism of individuals or as an investment for companies.

If its an investment: at some point those companies will want something back and likely more and more over time.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

This is a given. Is your only point that we should be more skeptical of free stuff or is there something deeper here?

[dijit]

Nothing deeper, skeptical is a fair term but impractical.

Consider instead what the person stands to gain.

In my case I invest in my network because it makes me independent and that is my objective and I am happy to pay for that.

For other people its because they might want to foster open source (freenode for example) and thus your for-profit business or gamer clan isn't the right fit.

Due diligence is the correct term. Not skepticism.