hopefully, maybe, it's good enough to get me hired somewhere.
it's fascinating how our whole infrastructure basically relies on either predatory investors gambling that they can build a userbase and find a way to milk them, or on ad money being manipulated by the whims of billionaires and faceless megacorps.
nothing is sacred or safe, everything we rely on is prone to dying at any moment, and everything we say and do is being sold to the highest bidder and used to try and sell us shit.
i have a deep, deep loathing of capitalism for all of this.
to answer the question that is always asked of "well, what platform should we be using instead?"... that's the wrong question
these are all fucked. this industry is fucked, capitalism just does this to any application that requires a continual revenue stream to upkeep. the more users, the more cost; the more potential revenue from those users. yet now that there isn't a good alternative, they can alleviate their bottom line with further cost saving measures and streamlining functionality of the platform into the safest, most effectively moderatable user information generating algorithm.*
a new platform won't save you. co-host is just as liable to someday fall down this road as any other platform online. there isn't perfection to be found just as there's no consumption ethical here: find the place where your friends are that is causing the least active harm and strife and try to make it better yourselves.
stop waiting for someone to make the co-host of chatrooms. nothing is sacred or safe indeed, so let's all try to focus on what actually matters here: talking to humans, meeting with your friends. discord sucks but it's where my friends are, so we're trying to make it better from within. eventually that'll break.
it's like the co-op all my friends are staying at with the leaky roof, they know it's not going to last. but they can still be there and talk to each other for another day, keeping eyes out for anything better, until it all comes crashing down and they're forced to look for a half-way decent alternative to nothing.
that's what's fucked under capitalism here, unless you have wealth you are only ever allowed things that are Good Enough until those are destroyed and we find the next Good Enough thing to cling to. we shouldn't make ourselves suffer by trying to forcefully abandon one Good Enough for another until something actually better exists. but that doesn't happen on its own, we have to make it happen.
*last i checked discord still isn't selling user data but i would not be surprised if that changed eventually
