Discord decides to IPO, Microsoft Xbox deal rejected

[HEXUS]

It is currently rounding off a 'pre-IPO' fundraiser that values it at modest $7 billion.

Read more.

[Tabbykatze]

I know Microsoft having Discord would have been a bad idea considering what happened to Skype and MSN.

But I'm still not sure IPO will be best fit for Discord because its primary focus will be monetisation and not being a great product (at my most negative).

Hmm...

[Rubarb]

Discord is a shocking bit of software (even for microsoft standards of late), I'd sooner get a few viruses than run discord.

[Yoyoyo69]

Have to delay I agree, I've never understood the appeal of Discord.

As mentioned above too, Microsoft would have been a better option for customers then an IPO.

Whilst Microsoft are a big corp, they have been better recently, profits supported by their other ventures too.

Discord alone, will be underpressure from shareholders to make profit at any cost.

They were valued at about $6b not long back, Microsoft offered a decent chunk more. They gotten free publicity and the appearance they're worth considerably more than they actually are.

The shares could be extremely overvalued, nothing new there though.

[Kato-2]

Have to delay I agree, I've never understood the appeal of Discord.

Discord has recreated web forums but in an instant messaging format like using your phone or whatsapp though it is capable of more.

This has made it more popular with young people, particularly gaming communities making it the video games social network in ways that others are not. It's deeply intertwined with PC gaming and Twitch were everyone used it.

Basically web forums of old = discord of today without it needing to be public like reddit.

[Output]

Basically web forums of old = discord of today without it needing to be public like reddit.

It's just the current proprietary Instant Messenger of choice really, and will eventually disappear, with open protocols such as IRC continuing as they always have.

[Spud1]

It will be interesting to see how this IPO goes - I actually quite like Discord and it works really well as a voice chat system that has an IRC like feel to it's text chat...and as someone who used IRC servers up until about 2 years ago, i'm happy to see the concept continued in a more modern way BUT, I would not pay for it any moire than I would have paid for an IRC server (mIRC excepted, that was worth the licence fee).

I'm quite surprised to see the negativity towards it on this thread so far - and would be interested to understand what problems people have with it.

It's main issue has got to be monetisation - they have a storefront that I have never looked at, a merch store and some premium features that again I don't feel the need to look at...I can see them pushing those subscriptions harder in an effort to make more cash. It seems to be working for them as they somehow took in $140m last year (!!) but I would be worried they will come under massive pressure to start trading their most valuable asset - the sheer amount of data they have collected. To date they have taken a very firm stance on not selling any of this data/metrics externally.

Will be one to watch I guess!

[[GSV]Trig]

Has anyone seen a tech IPO thats actually done well yet during the pandemic?

[Output]

I'm quite surprised to see the negativity towards it on this thread so far - and would be interested to understand what problems people have with it.

It's main issue has got to be monetisation - they have a storefront that I have never looked at, a merch store and some premium features that again I don't feel the need to look at...I can see them pushing those subscriptions harder in an effort to make more cash. It seems to be working for them as they somehow took in $140m last year (!!) but I would be worried they will come under massive pressure to start trading their most valuable asset - the sheer amount of data they have collected. To date they have taken a very firm stance on not selling any of this data/metrics externally.

Will be one to watch I guess!

For me, it's a matter of people seeming to ignore existing open solutions that can be just as good and obviously free, with it also meaning that you have much more control and understanding over what happens to the data involved - from what I understand (whether it is still the case I am unsure though), once you have an account with Discord you can't delete it.

So that perspective leads to another one of "why would anyone pay for Discord when there's that?" - and knowing that companies can change in a drastic way to try to make money for the shareholders, puts the data of the users in the sights of monetisation over privacy.

Proprietary things have a limited shelf life on their existence, with them banking on their popularity until that popularity goes away. Open solutions live on regardless of how popular they may be at the time in comparison, because if at least one person wants to use it, they can, even if it means having to fork an existing solution to make it maintainable again.

Admittedly I say this while running Windows 10 as my Operating System, but that doesn't take away from the fact that open protocols and open source software are great things, and if I do decide to do various things, I much prefer using open solutions to do so as the focus is generally meant to be to help people rather than having to focus on ways to profit from them like proprietary solutions usually have to do.

[spacein_vader]

For me, it's a matter of people seeming to ignore existing open solutions that can be just as good and obviously free, with it also meaning that you have much more control and understanding over what happens to the data involved - from what I understand (whether it is still the case I am unsure though), once you have an account with Discord you can't delete it.

You can, no idea how long it has been possible though. https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us...te-my-account-

[Output]

You can, no idea how long it has been possible though. https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us...te-my-account-

Thanks for pointing that out.

It changes the possibilty for me to use it at some point from 'never' to 'if I think there is enough useful information available on it and there aren't really any alternatives available with that information'.

The IPO situation would obviously still make me wary though, with the possibility of their data stance changing drastically for the reasons I suggested before.