True, we all also interacted in the real world for years before the internet.
So the Internet is also non-essential!
But, it makes it convenient. Discord is also super convenient.
It’s not like we didn’t see the writing on the wall 10 years ago, but all of us accepted convenience over everything else. Now we are reaping the “benefits”.
For me I have a private self hosted wiki that I use to document everything from gaming to my servers to just general life stuff. I’d love to start up a forum for gaming/tech, but I don’t have the resources nor funding to do that, plus there’s a decent amount of others already out there…
If you don’t need voice, there are a lot of options. Matrix has IRC support and encryption, and has voice options if you self host.
Riot is… A Discord clone without working voice and I found it to be an odd duck.
There’s RocketChat… More Slack like.
Mattermost.
I replaced my voice/video chats with Nextcloud Talk and/or Steam, based on the scenario. Outside of those, Matrix is good for community needs in my mind.
We interacted on the internet for years without discord.
It is far from essential.
True, we all also interacted in the real world for years before the internet.
So the Internet is also non-essential!
But, it makes it convenient. Discord is also super convenient.
It’s not like we didn’t see the writing on the wall 10 years ago, but all of us accepted convenience over everything else. Now we are reaping the “benefits”.
For me I have a private self hosted wiki that I use to document everything from gaming to my servers to just general life stuff. I’d love to start up a forum for gaming/tech, but I don’t have the resources nor funding to do that, plus there’s a decent amount of others already out there…
If you don’t need voice, there are a lot of options. Matrix has IRC support and encryption, and has voice options if you self host.
Riot is… A Discord clone without working voice and I found it to be an odd duck.
There’s RocketChat… More Slack like.
Mattermost.
I replaced my voice/video chats with Nextcloud Talk and/or Steam, based on the scenario. Outside of those, Matrix is good for community needs in my mind.