As opposed to IRC? Forums? hell - even an email list... All things that are a lot easier to search then Discord, have much lighter clients, and can be done free.
Do you really think there was 'no way to communicate' for projects before discord ?
You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client. There's a reason they 'just' use Discord. So now you want developers to have to check emails, IRC, forum posts, whatever other outdated communication platform, AND Discord? Why on Earth would they use all that when Discord takes care of all of those features and more.
Having more than one central place to communicate is 'hostile'.
>>You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client
I'd hardly call discord a 'stream lined' system. Latency (especially in voice which is supposed to be it strong suit) is bad, search is subpar compared to even simple google searches, information is silo'd, its yet another place that can potentially leak PII, and basically the network is a SPOF. SourceForge promised all you mention, and was backed by (at the time) the largest IPO in history..and lasted what 2-3 years before it started decaying? I remember projects scrambling to find hosting after SF - and I remember how fast everyone jumped on GitHub .. I was donating to GH from the beginning just to help prevent another SF scenario...
As for it 'hostile' - its a lot easier to do a google search and find all sorts of information streams about something, rather then having to figure out the discord server for a project, search the discord server, and still miss any info. from outside of discord. That seems more 'hostile' to me then less wall-garden systems.
Edit: last I knew, over 1K oss projects still maintain libera.chat channels
In 2025, a company using IRC to communicate with its users would be like using ham radio. Sure it exists, but it is far too niche to be worth the effort.
How so? You literally just open a web page, and choose a nickname. It's easier than creating a Discord account and verifying your email address and phone number.
Discord has a gradual onboarding process. If your IP isn't poisoned, and your browser looks pretty normal, you just have to enter a username and you're in with an "unclaimed account"
They'll then nag you to fill in more details as you use it. It's honestly a pretty slick way of doing onboarding.
