[opan]

This may be a good time to consider whether one program should really be handling all those things, or if it's putting too many eggs in one basket and asking too much of any one program. Discord seems comparable to a Chinese superapp, made to trap its users and become an irreplaceable part of their everyday lives. I think I understand it's hard to give up some of these features once you're used to them, but it seems worth doing. Personally I use a mix of IRC, XMPP, and Matrix, mostly IRC (internet people) and Matrix (IRL friends/family), though. I believe XMPP and Matrix both have some sort of voice or video chat support across some clients and servers, but if someone were to try to call me through them, it would seem "weird" to say the least. I usually get people on Mumble if we're gonna play a game and want a voice chat going. It's rock-solid, everyone I play games with seems fine with it. When we're done voice chatting, we close Mumble, a bit like hanging up a phone call.

As for video calls and screen sharing, not something that's been super normalized in my circle. Some of us stream to Twitch with OBS, but it's rare to say "hey come watch my computer screen for an hour in a 1-on-1 call". There is just one guy who seems like a heavy Discord user who seemed to want to do this sometimes. I showed him Jitsi to placate him, we can both join a session in a browser without accounts and I can see his screen. I wasn't a big fan of that, though, I'd rather just not let that be normalized, personally. A screenshot, video clip, describing it to me, letting it go, any of that seems better than being trapped in a screensharing/video call of uncertain length.

[alfnor]

The private servers I'm in always have a few people screen sharing whenever a voice chat is active. They're either sharing their gameplay (semi-privately, hence no Twitch) or they're co-watching movies. Oh and every so often, screen sharing is used for getting someone's opinion on image editing or a song in they're making. I've also given people remote tech support which is way easier to do when their screen is visible.

But it's worth noting that as an older Gen Z, this is just how people hang out nowadays, so we'll be watching anime together in the server until we fall asleep or whatever. That's why screen sharing isn't as useful as screenshots and video clips.

[axus]

The benefit of one big app is a consistent identity. Seeing that an account was created years ago, and how long it's been a member of the current server, helps identify spam and scams. When a user you're familiar with provides a link to another Discord server, its more trustworthy.

Discord has also done a good job protecting identity; better than DNS has :) I use lots of other apps with "real" identity, Discord is good for centralizing non-work, non-family activity.

[pixl97]

The particular problem with most of humanity is we value convenience over just about everything else.

Superapps are just going to just keep winning because of this.

[4WIW]

You can use as many different apps for yourself but good luck sustaining a community/team/org that requires learning 5 apps for participation, especially when not all users are savvy.

In order to sustain an ecosystem instead of mega-app, that ecosystem needs to be really smoothly integrated, and I know of no good examples of this