There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Discord is laying off 17 percent of its staff, a move that CEO Jason Citron said is meant to “sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.”

Based on Citron’s message to employees and my understanding of the business, Discord isn’t in dire financial straits, though it has yet to become profitable and is still trying to revive user growth after a surge during the pandemic.

In his memo to employees, which you can read in full below, Citron said Discord grew its headcount too fast over the last few years — an admission that has become quite common among tech CEOs as of late.

These cuts are Discord’s largest to date after the messaging app laid off 4 percent of staff last August.

They add to the layoffs that continue to sweep across the tech industry, including deep cuts at Google and Amazon just this week.

The company has been contemplating going public since it turned down a $12 billion acquisition offer from Microsoft in 2021, though I’m told it’s nowhere near close to doing so.

The original article contains 289 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 36%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

GlitzyArmrest ,
@GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world avatar

But no execs, I assume.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

At least not without a golden parachute.

SocialMediaRefugee ,

Here is your reward for fucking up

Gork ,

The execs I know yell at people. They somehow get rewarded for having temper tantrums.

murmelade ,

I hope it’s the Nitro bros.

dinckelman ,

It’s not like the management has let people, who still work there, add or fix anything. It’s been nothing but Nitro promos, and animated profiles. Huge shame that people got laid off like this

Sabata11792 ,
@Sabata11792@kbin.social avatar

"Heres your hourly reminder to rent worthless garbage we want you to pay monthy for, per server"

spacebirb ,

God forbid they offer goods and services in exchange for money

surewhynotlem ,

The market decides. And the market seems to have decided that their goods and services are not worth exchanging for money.

vynlwombat ,

Discord is one of the few companies that don’t shove 3rd party ads down your throat. But they do advertise the hell out of nitro. And yeah, I don’t find nitro interesting enough to pay that much.

SuperSpruce ,

I used to occasionally pay for nitro due to the same reasons and the decent privacy policy–until they changed it early last year (or was it '22?) There I did a 180 and am anti-Discord now.

vynlwombat ,

Aaaaaaand discord introduces ads

stom ,
@stom@lemmy.world avatar

I pay for it.

The cost is worth the extra quality when working with others over screenshare etc. The community management features are useful. A large portion of my workflow is aided by discord and GitHub, both of whi h I pay for premium features.

I don’t expect them to provide these services for free considering the huge boost they give to productivity. Expecting them to be free is naive.

deweydecibel ,

There’s a difference between “offer” and “push”.

pycorax ,

I would if their features worked consistently for me. If I’m paying a monthly subscription, the app better not have major bugs in the key features I use. With my hardware configuration, screensharing is a blurry stuttery mess, their mobile app is a complete shitshow that can’t even layout elements correctly or display the correct channel without having to restart the app every few seconds.

It doesn’t help that their support seems to be ignoring reports of these issues from people.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

laughs in Matrix

paraphrand ,

shop.matrix.org

paddirn ,

“sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.”

Ahh yes, watching co-workers get laid off does wonders for improving the way you work together with the people still there.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

It does make you work harder… at finding some other job:-P.

GissaMittJobb ,

Not exactly a stellar market to be looking in. Chances are that you’ll be trading down, especially if you’re in some level of big tech, like Discord arguably is.

GuyDudeman ,
@GuyDudeman@lemmy.world avatar

Right? Sharpening focus and working together have zero to do with how many people you employ.

This was about profits. It’s always about profits.

Hamartiogonic ,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

Or maybe if has something to do with the limited availability of VC money. If you can’t find people to throw free money at your company, you need to figure out a way to actually make it profitable. You know, like a normal business…

After 15 rounds and 995.4 M$, maybe it’s about time.

AFC1886VCC ,

What a load of PR wank

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

Trauma bonding exercise!

Emptiness ,
@Emptiness@lemmy.world avatar

“The beatings will continue until morale improves!”

RandomStickman ,
@RandomStickman@kbin.social avatar

Any alternative you would recommend? I'm mostly using it for video group call for dnd. Although convincing the group to change to yet another program would be the hardest part.

m_randall ,

As far as self hosted I’ve heard a lot about matrix but haven’t tried it. Maybe I’ll give it a shot this weekend.

matrix.org

There’s also telegram, slack, etc if you want something else commercial.

Ebsku ,

I’ve convinced few of my friends to use Matrix and it has been a really nice platform and now I prefer it to Discord not only because it respects user privacy but also because it doesn’t have the nitro bs

m_randall ,

That’s great to hear. Somehow everyone and everything is on discord now and I really am not a fan of it what with all the pop ups and flashing shiny things to buy lol.

I’ll try to get my smaller groups on matrix

brian ,

you can run a bridge. I forget that friends are on discord sometimes bc it’s so seamless, and they can’t tell I’m not sending messages from discord either. I do have to use the discord app for voip tho

Ebsku ,

Yeah I still have a lot of friends that just refuse to get off Discord but at least I got a few people to move like I said

m_randall ,

Someone replied to me that you can run a bridge and never even know. I’m definitely trying it out now. Sick of all the nitro ads.

AlteredStateBlob ,
@AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social avatar

Does Matrix have video calls by now?

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

Only if you use Element. Seems like the new Element client is making it even better, but afaik no protocol level support: element.io/…/element-x-now-with-embedded-voip/

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

They are just using an implementation of Jitsi for the time being. Long story short: Yes, but they are still working on it.

rafadavidc ,

The inertia of “what we have works fine” is why I’m still using a lot of things.

CoopaLoopa , (edited )

Microsoft Roblox ripped off Discord and branded it as Guilded GG. Features-wise for audio and game streaming, they offer higher quality than Discord for free.

Is there any chance you’ll get your group of friends to move to “MS Teams for gamers”? anything other than Discord? No chance.

Edited: Correction that Guilded is owned by Roblox, not MS.

fjordbasa , (edited )

Guilded.gg is owned by Roblox, where does Microsoft come into play?

CoopaLoopa ,

Just checked and you’re right. Looks like it was always owned by Roblox.

I must be getting it mixed up with the Teams features they added to the Xbox game bar on windows.

krash ,

Matrix, I’d you want something truly open and respects user privacy.

Cris_Color ,
@Cris_Color@lemmy.world avatar

Not sure if matrix does video calls, so if you’re looking for something additional for that functionality, jitsi may be worth looking into. If I recall correctly its open source

RandomStickman ,
@RandomStickman@kbin.social avatar

Thanks for reminding me of jitsi! I'll see if my group would bite for a matrix and jitsi combo lol

Cris_Color ,
@Cris_Color@lemmy.world avatar

Someone else responded to me saying I wasn’t sure if matrix supports video calls:

“They do, group video calls are implementing Jitsi.”

Integration might make things even easier :)

Best of luck!

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

They do, group video calls are implementing Jitsi.

chitak166 ,

Matrix is to discord as lemmy is to reddit.

The fediverse is the future.

soggy_kitty ,

Host a teamspeak server on a raspberry pi, the sound quality is superior and there’s no stupid feature set you don’t need

crispy_kilt ,

Jitsi

homesweethomeMrL ,

Tech CEOs: we need better numbers. Fire a bunch of people! Ahh there we go. Now we’re flush with cash. Well, my work here is done.

someguy3 , (edited )

And gut the r&d budget. That’s future CEO’s problem.

superduperenigma ,

Now where’s my golden parachute?

CosmicTurtle ,

The Jack Welsh way…

That guy is literally, not figuratively, responsible for most of the shitty things that companies do now.

Lightrider ,

Fuckingcapitalists

tabular ,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

I’d look for something else but it’s not as if my friends are there. Yay vendor lock-in !

PanArab ,

Right after they ruined the app’s UI?

Maximilious ,
@Maximilious@kbin.social avatar

Mobile UI is atrocious after the recent upgrade a couple months ago. Wish I could go back.

Shihali ,

Leave a bad review. I did get halfway back.

Coreidan ,

That’ll teach em!

FeelThePower ,
@FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

you can download an old APK on Android, or sideload on iOS. I have one with the early 2023 layout and one with the pre-2021 layout just because. none with the new update

blueson ,

Download an APK of an older version and disable auto-updates.

The API still works well so the old client doesn’t have any issues.

SuperSpruce ,

Y’know, they were going crazy over the top implementing unnecessary features… Maybe they actually did have too many employees doing useless things, but they should’ve instead had those employees focus on performance instead

lazynooblet ,
@lazynooblet@lazysoci.al avatar

Probably trying everything they could to get more $$$ but it didn’t work out so… bye.

corsicanguppy ,

You think you could put “improved performance and fixed bugs” on the brochure but if it’s not something with ~A.I. then it’s not gonna help sales.

sunbeam60 ,

You hit the nail on the head.

I see this so many places - nobody asks “how big does this company need to be”? This is the problem with public companies - they are caught in an endless growth trap. Private businesses at least get to a point where a) growth has to happen sustainably because often there isn’t endless money available to invest and b) once you’ve got one private jet, as owners, do you really need another?

Reddit was no different. Maybe it would have been better for us all if it was a much smaller team and just careful tendered like a garden that had filled its plot.

Copernican ,

But isn’t Reddit still private?

sunbeam60 ,

Well yeah, but we both know they are behaving like a company heading for an attempted IPO.

Copernican ,

But that’s why I don’t think the private vs public company distinction is what matters. When it comes to private, there’s a whole class of private equity owned companies that some people won’t even consider working at because of the reputation their cost cutting and flip mentality is. It’s not a black and white private good public bad because only one has public share holders and exchanges.

sunbeam60 ,

It’s definitely not as simple as my quick comment on Lemmy pretends, agreed.

NotJustForMe ,

The one writing the change-logs should stay though. Hilarious.

But yeah, featureitis usually comes from employees sitting on their hands. I mean, I keep telling myself, just because I only use two features, doesn’t mean everybody else does… But I strongly feel that nobody really does. Chat, video, voice, done.

EnderMB ,

Well, looks like I’ll be limiting my use of Discord from now on. I’ve no interest in supporting tech companies that will reduce headcount over admitting fault.

Copernican , (edited )

As someone who works in tech, it doesn’t surprise me. I had a lot of friends get poached 2 years ago with salary increases that shocked me during this blitz on hiring. What surprises me is timing. Some companies recognized the over optimistic forecasting earlier and realized to let folks off a year ago. Some folks are just now getting laid off. I’m. Not sure what led some companies to drag it out vs drop the hammer earlier. Did some see the writing on the wall and choose to cut earlier? Did other folks really try to keep employees hoping things would turn around?

EnderMB ,

While not as bad as last year, there are lots of layoffs across tech again. Google and Amazon have already had multiple rounds in the last two months, alongside a handful of companies that aren’t particularly well-run, like Unity, Duolingo, and now Discord.

sunbeam60 ,

Wait what? Ok, let’s say they “admit fault”; what then? Go under and have to let everybody go?

Be reasonable.

ryannathans ,

Definitely not getting linux video streaming now

chitak166 ,

OBS + Virtual Camera

In typical Linux fashion, you need to install additional bullshit to get basic functionality: obsproject.com/…/obs-virtual-cam-on-linux.134849/

In this case, it’s the ever-popular “v4l2loopback-dkms”. Should be available in your repositories.

Fedizen ,

A wave of enshittification has struck Discord

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

Sorry to say it, but it has always sucked.

platypus_plumba ,

My stress levels skyrocket whenever I’m using Discord. The quality of the voice is nice but having to constantly reconfigure the settings to make it work fine and the unintuitive UI stresses me out.

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

I have basically disabled all input settings in the app and configure the input before it reaches Discord for consistency. Still it sometimes messes up things amazingly.

webhead ,
@webhead@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah I use the Steelseries sonar stuff because that makes it so that inputs never change. When my headset turns off it redirects the output to my speakers and when I turn the headset back on, it goes back to it. Virtual audio devices are very nice in general lol.

AlecSadler ,

Absolutely. For some crazy-ass reason my job transitioned away from Teams (I get it) and Slack and to Discord.

Discord is garbage for this type of work environment. Maybe it works for some? But it just doesn’t make sense.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

lmao.
Discord is surely very good for work-related trade secrets

mint_tamas ,

My company has been using Discord for work and at first I was excited to try it (coming from Slack companies), but I had to realize that it’s very unfit for work. The only thing that’s better is the visibility of threads. We are moving to Slack now, thankfully.

snek ,
@snek@lemmy.world avatar

I used Discord for work and it was great for voice channels. We used slack for channels where we needed to share text and images, worked quite well. Main problem was that many people at the company were not really from the internet in the sense that they had no Discord etiquette whatsoever.

chitak166 ,

Nah. What sucked was having to type in IP addresses just to talk on voice.

MaxPow3r11 ,

Capitalism!

It fucking sucks!

sunbeam60 ,

I wouldn’t confuse ownership structure with capitalism. You could have capitalism and coops only.

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

Uhm, they are getting laid off to increase profit margin, or at the very least so that the CEO can say so at the next shareholder meeting. Do not confuse a workplace with private ownership, that is capitalism.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

They’re getting laid off because there IS NO PROFIT MARGIN.

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

That depends on the time frame considered. Short term loss is often used as an excuse to lay people off for long time gains.

EDIT: Purges like these also often target people they want to get rid off, but legally can not otherwise fire. Such as old people.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

From my understanding their long term unprofitable. They were started by venture capital and they’ve operated on venture capital to capture the market.

That’s a big part of how they were able to gain dominance of a market previously dominated by TeamSpeak, Mumble, and Ventrilo with a completely free offering.

They’ve basically been running in loans and now money isn’t free anymore/interest rates mean something again.

Urist ,
@Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

Yes, but they also have a huge monopoly on communities that are hard to build up again on new platforms. Especially problematic is that many use it as forums, but all the information is not indexed on search engines, so you have no choice but to have an account and join a community to see what info is available. These communities are going to be held hostage and subjected to tons of anti-features going forward so the capitalists can get return on their investments.

I am not saying every business will give a positive ROI, I am saying many shitty things will be done to assure it. Even if ROI is positive, shitty choices will be made in an attempt to make it higher. That is a result of capitalism.

Copernican ,

In this thread: Fuck Discord! Fuck capitalism! No company should lay off 170 people.

In other thread: Fuck Boeing! Fuck capitalism! The company should die along with all 150,000 jobs occupied by their employees.

eskimofry ,

Consistency is the hobgoblin of mindless something… something…

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •