Discord Is Opening the Monetization Floodgates (pcgamer.com) 73
Discord is introducing new ways to generate revenue, including server subscriptions, tiered subscriptions, and the ability for server owners to sell digital products. This move has raised concerns among some users who feel that Discord is becoming less welcoming and more like the paywalled internet it was once an escape from. PC Gamer reports: "To date, we've paid out millions of dollars to thousands of creators and communities, and we're seeing more creators and communities earning on their Discord servers every day," wrote product manager Derek Yang in a blog post published today. "...Today, we're excited to share new tools that help you get started earning money faster."
The nickel-and-dime-ification of Discord servers begins this week with "media channels," a new type of channel (currently in beta) designed to host subscriber-only content, including, for instance, "exclusive memes and wallpapers." You could see an art creator using this Discord feature to post subscriber-only illustrations, as many comic creators and other illustrators already use Patreon to do.
Not a bad deal for creators, but that's only the start of the new revenue streams Discord, who currently takes a 10% cut of server subscriptions, plans to implement. Here's a full list of what the free (now with three asterisks) chat app has in the works:
- Tier Templates: Formalized subscription tiers with prices set by Discord ($3.99, $4.99, $7.99, and $9.99)
- Downloadables: One-time purchasable digital products or subscriptions sold by server owners, which will be accessed via ...
- Server Shops: "A single home for server owners to sell Server Subscriptions, Downloadables and Premium Roles"
The nickel-and-dime-ification of Discord servers begins this week with "media channels," a new type of channel (currently in beta) designed to host subscriber-only content, including, for instance, "exclusive memes and wallpapers." You could see an art creator using this Discord feature to post subscriber-only illustrations, as many comic creators and other illustrators already use Patreon to do.
Not a bad deal for creators, but that's only the start of the new revenue streams Discord, who currently takes a 10% cut of server subscriptions, plans to implement. Here's a full list of what the free (now with three asterisks) chat app has in the works:
- Tier Templates: Formalized subscription tiers with prices set by Discord ($3.99, $4.99, $7.99, and $9.99)
- Downloadables: One-time purchasable digital products or subscriptions sold by server owners, which will be accessed via ...
- Server Shops: "A single home for server owners to sell Server Subscriptions, Downloadables and Premium Roles"
The cycle continues (Score:5, Insightful)
1. People unhappy with current platforms
2. Someone launches a NEW platform that promises to be DIFFERENT
3. People flock to new platform and feel it's pretty great
4. Platform operators realize shit costs money and look for ways to not go bankrupt
5. Users get pissed at changes
6. Shits on fire, yo
7. Go to 1
=Smidge=
Re:The cycle continues (Score:5, Insightful)
4. Platform operators knew all along that shit costs money but knew they had to wait until they had users sufficiently reliant on their platform.
5. If they get the timing wrong or the charges wrong they lose users, if not profit!
Its a bait and switch that sometimes works.
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I disagree with 4 in the general case. I think a lot of these projects start out with honest if overly lofty ambitions and not a lot of thought put into the long term. If it were better planned, then the mechanisms for making money would have been baked in from the start.
Perhaps Discord never expected it to get as big as it has; remember that it was originally developed to solve a very specific problem related to coordinating multiplayer video games over existing voice chat software. They created a monster
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If it were better planned, then the mechanisms for making money would have been baked in from the start.
Costwise you can't compete with free.
IRC and TeamSpeak still exist.
Re:The cycle continues (Score:4, Informative)
I take your point but IRC and Teamspeak lack several features very useful to gamers that are present in Discord. For example, discord tells you what games all your friends are currently playing (if they have the feature turned on, most people do) so you can see at a glance who is playing what and make a quick decision to request to join one of them or not. Another is game invite integration, I can invite friends to join my team in-game through discord.
That last one is especially useful to me. I play a fair amount of Halo Infinite which I got through steam, but I have removed the xbox game bar as I consider it spyware. You can invite people through steam, but you have to friend them first. In discord, anyone's name that I see in any server or in my previous DMs list, regardless if they are added as a friend or not, I can right click on their name, click 'invite to halo', they click a button in their DMs, and boom they've joined my fireteam in Halo. Literally two clicks for me and one for them and it's done. That kind of frictionless grouping ability is what attracts swathes of casual and competitive gamers alike, and right now discord is the only provider of this feature that works across hundreds (maybe thousands) of games from a variety of developers.
Now that I think about it, Valve could easily add a lot of this functionality to steam, they wouldn't even need to monetise these new features at all because more people using steams means more game sales going through steam and they'll make plenty of extra profit that way. Valve could eat discords lunch as it seems to me, why haven't they?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashdot User Yells At Cloud (Score:4, Insightful)
Hello,
I had largely the same experience as you growing up in the 1970s-1980s, so share a mutual "OK, boomer" with you over these experiences.
These are not the experiences that teens and pre-teens are having, though. They live in a world where computers and networking are miniaturized and ubiquitous. Heck, they even spent a couple of years of doing classes online through Zoom meetings.
While their understanding of how the underlying technology works may not be great, a lot of them have manifested an ability to use it and seamlessly integrate it into their lifestyle.
I don't know if what they have is better or worse than what we had, but before I complain about it too much, I will point out that it is the world we created for them--predatory business models and dark patterns and all--and we shouldn't complain too much about how they choose to live in it.
If you stay in touch with how they use the technologies we gave them and even adopt some of them ourselves, you can learn a lot about them and how they think, everything from how they approach problem solving to how they socialize. And, having done so myself, I have to say it isn't all bad.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
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But as for predatory business models, they're nothing new. Back about a couple hundred years ago, at least, they had something called, "indentured servitude," where you could basically sign up to sell yourself into slavery for a specified time, at the end of which, I think either you were freed with whatever you learned, (a bit like an internship or apprenticeship but with no escape clause,) or possibly with some pay, (not sure how specifically it worked but it was something like that, I think,) and the person to whom you sold yourself could pretty much treat you just about however they wanted, if I understand it right. (I admit I may not; history was never my strongest suit, but I think I have the general gist of it.) In any case, that's pretty predatory. Oh, there was also this little episode in which a religious organization called the Catholic Church scared a lot of people into thinking their dead relatives were being tortured by the Devil and his Demons, and that they could spring their departed loved ones from this punishment if you bought something called an "Indulgence" from the Church. AFAIK, it wasn't an actual THING, it was just a magical "Get Out of Hell Free" card. NOW THAT I'd call predatory, and both of those things date back long before our generation. These are only a couple examples. Chattel slavery is another, that I would be remiss for not mentioning. That's pretty predatory. We, meaning our generation, didn't invent these things. (If I may be forgiven for asserting this, we didn't start the fire...) At most, SOME members of our generation can be credited (or blamed, depending upon your point of view,) with developing exciting new forms of predation, but predation itself is nothing new.
My rebuttal to this is simple. Calculate the ratio of the average wage to the average house price in the 70s. Do the same calculation with today's figures, compare those two ratios. Your generation did that to the younger generation.
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I don't know if what they have is better or worse than what we had, but before I complain about it too much, I will point out that it is the world we created for them--predatory business models and dark patterns and all--and we shouldn't complain too much about how they choose to live in it.
Very true, and I thank you for being honest enough to admit it.
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Hey old fart, what about online clouds? :)
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Personally I'm fascinated with old technology and the history of technology. I also collect various bits, my Atari 2600 gets regular use, as does a CRT TV, the VCR less so. While not a boomer, I'm old enough to remember the world before the internet, I regularly socialise with people in real life.
But I also enjoy modern videogames. Nobody in my IRL social circles plays the same games as me, so I go further afield to find team mates. The internet, and discord specifically allows me to connect with fellow
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Discord is also free and has many more features than IRC and TeamSpeak combined
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Discord is also free
What is the article about again?
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It's about a discord adding a feature allowing users to monetize certain discord servers. Sort of like how you might have a subscription setup for IRC or TeamSpeak
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No, it's about Discord adding ways to get money from users, sort of how IRC doesn't need to because everyone can join the network with their own server.
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It's about server admins getting money from users (which discord of course takes a cut). The same could be done with an IRC server.
You are free of course to create your own IRC/discord server with no one on it, but it wouldn't have the content or network that the server admins are providing so that's a moot point
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The same could not be done with an IRC server because, and that is the part you seem to have missed, everyone is free to join the network with their own server.
You are free, as you said, to create you own IRC server. You are also free to run your own IRC server. And you are free to connect your IRC server to the IRC network of IRC servers, with all their users and all their channels. You are free to join any number of public channels from any server connected to the network, including your own.
You can not
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I think you're missing the plan here. The monetization described here is for the server admins.
Imagine you had a special fan club or something and you wanted to set up an exclusive place for your members to discuss stuff and to give them hot new upcoming releases or whatever.
One thing you could do would be to set up an IRC server with channels and then sell subscriptions to people. Now IRC is pretty outdated in its authentication services, so the subscription might be something like a channel password or
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The plan is to turn users into money. Whether those users are moderators who call themselves admins doesn't make a difference, they are users on the Discord host, users of Discord's service.
And I already explained that what Discord calls "servers" aren't actually servers.
One thing you could do would be to set up an IRC server with channels and then sell subscriptions to people.
No, you could not. I already explained twice why you could not.
I'll go into a little more detail here because you seem confused about the nomenclature.
Any IRC user can create channels. It doesn't require mods or admins or special privil
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I think you're still missing the point here. It's not that users can't create their own IRC channel or IRC server or Discord "server". That's all possible. It's that users want to be on the exclusive channels.
And if you do charge money, well, you cannot compete with servers that are free of charge and have more to offer.
This seems to be the hitch. Sometimes people will create something that DOES have more to offer and they CAN charge for it.
Imagine this. I'm a famous youtuber that does car repairs. Lots of people want to give input to me and receive advice on their own cars. I have a Patreon setup and people su
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users want to be on the exclusive channels.
Users don't care be on exclusive channels. Users care about connecting to other users, which is the opposite of exclusive. Rather, some people want to lock users into exclusive channels. Bait and switch, this is called. For that, you have to have bait.
Imagine this. I'm a famous youtuber
Matrix is federated, there is no technical reason to use one server over another. (And technically there is no reason to use it at all: It is built on web sockets and JSON APIS because "everyone supports HTTP" (but not TCP apparently? lol) and tries to be
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Users don't care be on exclusive channels. Users care about connecting to other users, which is the opposite of exclusive
I'm afraid you're wrong on this one. Users love to be in exclusive channels, especially if it gives them special access to talk to someone that's not as accessible.
Once again, there are ALREADY people doing this via Patreon and there's a clear market demand for it.
I don't personally plan on having a subscriber section on the discord server I run, nor do I think I would subscribe to anyone else's discord server. I also run an IRC server (which I have the chat for one channel linked with a discord channel),
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Do you really believe that users wouldn't prefer the people they want to talk to to be more accessible?
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Of course they would but part of that is getting them all in the right place, moderation, etc. IRC users are quite familiar with this, some channels have passwords that make the channel LESS accessible and that's how the users want it
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Those passwords are not sold on Patreon, are they.
Nor do the moderators pay any server admins for the privilege.
Password protected channels are still accessible through the entire network, not dependent on any one company or centralised infrastructure.
What, then, is the right place?
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The passwords could be sold. Moderators might pay for the server hosting. Password protected channels are only available on the IRC network, they're entirely dependent on the IRC server operators.
If as you say users don't want this, then I guess discord has wasted some time since no users will use it. On the other hand, there could be a market for it and the users will want it
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The passwords could be sold.
But aren't. Nobody would buy them, there is no point.
Moderators might pay for the server hosting.
Moderators are not hosted on servers. IRC is not the web.
they're entirely dependent on the IRC server operators.
Anyone can set up a server at home and be an admin if they want to. So no, the ops are not dependent on any particular server admins.
So, the question remains: What is the right place for users? It is not the same as the right place for user lock-in.
Look at what is happening with Reddit. They also try to cash in on their unpaid mods.
As soon as Discord charges for hosting, mods will leave. But
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Discord isn't charging for hosting. It's still free. Setting up an IRC server costs money.
Users do pay for access to private channels, that's quite common. It even happens in the real world where people pay for access to exclusive clubs.
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It even happens in the real world
Are you saying that the internet is not real?
Weird.
Also weird that you would pay for setting up a server.
If you have internet access already, and a router or other device that is always connected, the only thing it should cost you is time.
I have never heard of anyone paying for access to an IRC channel. Anyway, the ops won't have to worry about anyone pulling the plug or changing the terms and conditions on them there.
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Are you saying that the internet is not real?
No, I'm saying the Internet exists in the real world, your theories on how people act are not based in reality.
Also weird that you would pay for setting up a server.
If you have internet access already, and a router or other device that is always connected, the only thing it should cost you is time.
Also weird that you'd think that in 2023. Servers need hardware and power, both of which cost money. Although it's still fairly common to get an IP in the US, in other parts of the world, CGNAT is becoming more widespread as IPv4 addresses run out which complicates people connecting to the server significantly. Almost all residential ISPs aren't going to allow running an IRC server so you may n
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Users do pay for access to private channels, that's quite common. It even happens in the real world where people pay for access to exclusive clubs.
Are you saying that the internet is not real?
No, I'm saying the Internet exists in the real world
Ah, so you are saying IRC is not real. Or at least somehow less real than whatever passes for the real world.
Servers need hardware and power, both of which cost money.
Are you saying you are visiting this site on something other than hardware? How do you do that?
I mean, if you say you are visiting from an internet cafe, that could explain your difficulty in setting up your own server.
Almost all residential ISPs aren't going to allow running an IRC server
This reminds me of the Hollywood producer who, when he heard of camera phones, asked if there was a way to hide the film from the audience so they cannot see it.
The internet is "dumb
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Ah, so you are saying IRC is not real. Or at least somehow less real than whatever passes for the real world.
Couldn't even finish the sentence. Oof
Welcome to the real world of 2023 where infrastructure costs money and ISPs don't act like they did in the 90s.
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Discord is not free.
You have to pay by selling your privacy out: it is now impossible to make a new account without giving them your phone number.
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Oh man, wait until you learn about phonebooks
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Their share price has also doubled in the last 6 months since Zuckerberg relented to shareholders on dumping quite so much money into VR.
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Whether the enshittification started at the beginning or sometime along the growth curve, you still end up with a beshitted service festooned with ads and paywalls.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a last ditch cash grab (Score:1)
Discord? Welcoming? (Score:5, Insightful)
This move has raised concerns among some users who feel that Discord is becoming less welcoming and more like the paywalled internet it was once an escape from.
I haven't used Discord much, so correct me if I'm wrong here, but Facebook aside isn't Discord the least welcoming of all social networks? The first thing you need is an invitation to an exclusive chatroom, then you need to log in, load a javascript orgy of a website, and then in order to get any information or participate in anything like a conversation you need to scroll through a, potentially, extremely long unsorted IRC log. With no comment trees or any method of parsing conversations available, and only comment pinning to help you find anything useful.
Facebook is worse in some regards, but I don't know of any other invitation-only social networks. And even Facebook doesn't require a log in for everything.
All right, all right. I should say something about the story:
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Invites are usually posted on the public internet, the mechanism is really bonkers
but yea, once you get enough people, the thing is unusable
so people split into more topic channels in the server in a cope
the interface is pretty crappy and because it is a application, not a protocol, you can't build a new one for your needs
It's just IRC with pictures (and voice chat - ha try that with 50 strangers!)
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Invites are usually posted on the public internet, the mechanism is really bonkers
but yea, once you get enough people, the thing is unusable
so people split into more topic channels in the server in a cope
the interface is pretty crappy and because it is a application, not a protocol, you can't build a new one for your needs
It's just IRC with pictures (and voice chat - ha try that with 50 strangers!)
Seems to work fine with 15k on the Unreal server for the last 6 years. I guess stay mad.
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> I haven't used Discord much
You should have stopped there, really.
The other reply described it as IRC with pictures, and that's a fine analogy that I often use myself. It's a little bit better than that, though; You can think of each discord server as an IRC network unto itself, with different channels for different topics. Channels can be further subdivided into threads, messages pinned, and user access granted per channel. It's not a terrible system. Far from perfect, but not terrible.
Yes you need to
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Discord isn't really social media, it's IRC for the web. People like it because unlike IRC you can send images and video, as well as text. It has better moderation tools to deal with spam and trolls too.
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Chatrooms are very rarely exclusive, many are searchable and freely joinable within discord. Others are not searchable but the invite is posted publicly on the web somewhere. And in general people are far more welcoming on discord vs. on facebook in my experience.
Ok the conversation mechanics are not the best, something more similar to a simple BB forum would be much better IMHO with distinct threads for separate conversations. But if the group admin has done a decent job it won't be too bad, and there's
lol, wut? (Score:1)
I haven't used Discord much, so correct me if I'm wrong here, but Facebook aside isn't Discord the least welcoming of all social networks?
No, you can literally go there and use it, without "INVITES" all day, but cool having some ignorant thoughts on a workflow you never used.
Are they charging for existing functionality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Are they charging for existing functionality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed, this sounds like monetization "done right:" add new features and ask users to pay for them, versus the more traditional "web 2.0" method of monetization, selling user data and ads. Personally, I'd much rather pay for a service I use than be bombarded with ads. From what I can see, Discord has, so far, done just that. You can use the base service for free, but if you find it valuable, you can pay them and get extra features.
Of course, there's really no way to use a service without having data collected on you, and I have no way of knowing if Discord sells that information. (I could check their privacy policy, but it's not like companies abide by their privacy policies.) So they could still be selling user data.
I do have to wonder if the slant in the article comes from the advertising industry. There's a huge push from advertisers to stick ads everywhere. There seems to be this collection of marketers who are absolutely offended at the idea that anything, anywhere, might not be used for advertising.
One day the wil find (Score:3)
Same old (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like all the other platforms, they started out by losing money hand over fist to gain users, then they lose users hand over fist to gain money.
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THIS ^^^^^
Succinct and well said.
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Well that's quite the rebuttal. Thanks for offering this pithy and well-thought response.
Well, it was nice while it lasted (Score:2)
Where're we heading?
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Outside, for a bit of real socializing with real people?
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We spent the past quarter century perfecting online communication exactly to avoid that.
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Seems like (Score:3)
Seems like, being an extra thing, that no one has to actually use this. They're just cutting out the likes of Patreon when it comes to small-time content producers.
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Until the big communities start putting in a subscription or one-time payment to access in order to weed out the trolls ...
public communications (Score:1)
everything you say on a discord server is public, fuck em
WTF?! (Score:4, Informative)
more like the paywalled internet it was once an escape from
This has been discord literally since Day 1. When have you ever seen a search result from Discord? Have you ever been able to visit Discord without logging?
No. Discord is just Facebook IRC with somewhat decent voice chat.
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You used to be able to visit discord without logging.
Not anymore.
Now you even need to give them your phone number.
This is great (Score:4, Interesting)
I run a pair of popular (for their niche) TTRPG bots. The better of the two has some premium features, and I currently use Patreon to manage this. It's a bit more fiddly than I would like, but it works. Discord seems to offer much better integration (not surprising) and an overall more user-friendly system. I also have more faith in them than I do in Patreon's bot that manages channel access for me.
And I'm not alone. A ton of people use the Discord+Patreon combo. This looks like great competition. Discord isn't taking away any existing functionality, and the functionality they are adding just enables things users would have had to pay for anyway (pretty much by definition).
If this had been available when I started, I would have used it, no question. As it stands now, however, migration would be a pain. I'd probably have to maintain both systems until my Patreon subscribers gradually dwindled to nothing.
Open Source Alternative Was Availible (Score:2)
My thoughts (Score:2)
Just, like, my thoughts man.
I have a Discord server for my friends and family. I have channels for playing TTRPGs together, I have a Meme channel so the others aren't swamped with stupid pictures, and a voice channel for just chatting or watching videos together. I don't use Nitro, I don't want or care about emoji's. It's nice and simple.
As long as the basic server bits stay free or low-cost ( I don't mind paying for a useful product ), and these new "features" are not shoved in my face every time I log in,
Executing another phase (Score:2)