look the only way discord stops being a place people use for development and software support for their tiny projects is if there's a better chat system that exists, that, get this, has enough value to get people to actually create an account on it.
you gotta do the work to build that. people pick discord because loading in a discord bot (better to think of these as "extensions" or "plugins") doesn't require learning docker compose or figuring out selfhosted Discourse, etc. It needs to be free. it NEEDS to be free. because otherwise that's yet another cost for a labor of love that isn't making money.
discord bots are way better documented and have way better helptext, generally people agree to or accidentally use similar syntax because of the api constraints, etc.
every other solution I hear proposed has much worse moderator tools or is something you'll never convince someone to sign up for, or it's like matrix where common misunderstandings happen because half the clients impliment threading and the other half of the clients see it as bare messages in the middle of chat with no reply tag showing who it's actually aimed at.
the way to fix it is to either build something new, or make materials to onboard people to something else and then build up the groundswell for it. Discord only has this because network effect, but the reason everyone stays is because it's the least worst, and most people say "fuck no I'm not downloading another app / going to create an account on your website" when you ask them to use alternatives.
but most of these devs aren't being paid for their time. asking even more unpaid labor without trying to do the work to fix it doesn't really help anyone.
you gotta either
- help build the alternatives
- or help with the social component of getting people more willing to sign up for random sites and get One More App They Have To Remember To Check instead of just going to the discord of least resistance and lowest social friction
otherwise you're making the problem worse. The few communities I'm in that I have to use discord for have said it's their most community engagement and idea development by far, because everyone's already checking discord for other reasons.
it's also the easiest to "run the show" on.
fix even some of one of those two and you'll be closer to your goals than shitting on the gift economy using chat apps you don't want to engage with (for whatever reason, justified or no) because it's the least unpaid work.
