There seems to be a serious lack of a Discord equivalent fediverse platform unlike other social media alternatives. Most of the closest options are either too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord, missing deal-breaking features like video calling or are not federated.

Could it due to some technical limitation of the ActivityPub protocol? I skimmed through its documentation and I get the impression that content may not be accommodating of instant messaging without unconventional modifications. It would also be troublesome to federate massive bunch of messages across (physical) servers in real time.

If it were truly possible to create a Discord alternative, what would it take to make it compatible with the fediverse while also ensuring it feels functional and intuitive for migrating users and not pose too much of a resource drain for self hosters?

Edit: Modified title to clarify post talking about ActivityPub in particular

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[–] Skavau@piefed.social 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Matrix just isn't up to it. It doesn't function the same really. It doesn't feel the same.

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That might not be a bad thing. I hate Discord. That might come due to its usage though. It's just not made to organize technical support.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well yes, that's the problem. Matrix is just used for tech/troubleshoot issues and it's buggy as hell.

It isn't a social experience like discord. It is a gap in the fediverse

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

matrix can absolutely be a social experience. check out the 196 blahaj chat: https://matrix.to/#/#196-Blahaj:chat.blahaj.zone

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Its uses are few and far between. It seems to me a hypothetical federated Discord client needs to adopt the same model as the fediverse with community lookup functions where the discord-like instances would federate with other discord instances and be able to browse rooms, in something akin to the Discord Discovery tool.

Matrix just doesn't offer that at all.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

yeah content discovery sucks unfortunately :(

I do think there maybe should be better lists and indexes of stuff that shows you related content on the Fediverse.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In what ways?

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Its buggy, it just doesn't really look like Discord. It is a chore for new users to use. There's no useful community discovery.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 5 points 1 month ago

That sounds like a frontend issue. Not a protocol issue

[–] littleomid@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Don’t go looking for a 1 to 1 drop in. That mindset won’t work much. Same case wit expecting windows to work the same as windows: they’re just different and have to be learned in their own ways.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago

Right, but it almost doesn't matter because no-one is actually using matrix in the same way they might use Discord. It just isn't being used socially for hobbies and interests and a part of that is it's design and bugs and tedium getting set up.

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can't choose what order channels are in, for one thing

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

That sounds like a frontend issue