The best thing Discord could do to grow is not focus on games as much.
This thread talks about Discord is trying to become Steam just as Steam is trying to become Discord.
This feels like the beginning of Discord flailing around in search of a business model.
But I really like this comment from Krael,
It's a Slack/Ventrilo hybrid that requires almost zero technical knowledge to set up or join. It's nothing groundbreaking by ANY stretch of the imagination, but there's a reason it took off the way it did.
Discord is at its heart is the same as Skype/Slack/Teamspeak/IRC but the UI/UX is leagues above everything else. Using Discord is so much easier than most alternatives and with just enough integrations that if they coughed off the "gaming" mantra they would be able to attract so many more users. Perhaps enough to get the amount of Nitro subs to stay afloat.
It is? IMO, it's insanely cluttered, the channel and user icons are way too big, it has crazy amounts of unnecessary white space everywhere, the settings menus are a total mess, and the customization is extremely limited (day/night, zoom, font-size and two display modes are all you get).
Discord may be easy to set up for people but even Slack is way better in every other regard and I would still take a good IRC client over either. I don't miss Mumble, Teamspeak or Ventrilo but Discord is only barely better as a voice chat program. And that's not even getting into the performance, memory usage, compatibility or stability aspects which Discord completely fails at. Nor the fact they are so far in the VC hole that it's pretty much inevitable they will try something shady to make money at some point.
All I can say is thank God that Steam/Valve is finally improving their chat and voice client, though I have mixed feelings about the results so far there, too.
p.s. Sorry if that is way too off-topic or came accross as harsh. I just really really dislike Discord, especially the fact that it's already killed off a bunch of IRC channels I loved by having them close down and migrate to it. :(
You can make it look like IRC if you want, by setting it to compact mode in settings, and you could also run an IRC bridge! There are a tonne of ways to use it.
I'm totally with you, the UI is definitely far too much on discord. They have a distinctive style that's unique to them, but this begets unfamiliarity. I find myself fumbling around discord when trying to some (presumably) simple tasks, like trying to set up a group call. Design wise, I know it's kind of silly to say it, but it looks downright bad on macOS because it is so militantly non-native.
It's an Electron app, so it's the same on every platform. It doesn't look native anywhere.
I don't think Discord needs more users; it needs a way to increase the worth of the users they already have. I don't think Nitro subs (at least in its current form) was ever intended to be Discord's main monetary model. Getting a few million more users taxing your servers while hoping enough of them subscribe to Nitro isn't going to make the company wildly profitable, but selling games might.
Businesses won't migrate from Slack. Even though Discord doesn't require you to pay for increased message history or features, Slack has a multitude of features that are worth paying for. Off the top of my head:
Not showing you every public channel
Permissions system is very simple for end-users
Limiting the time you have to edit or delete a message
Setting message visibility & retention policies, and archiving channels
Only allowing specific email domains/addresses to create an account, or having to be invited to the workspace(s)
Requiring 2FA and use of integrated SAML SSO (Slack supports TOTP but SAML can support just about anything, depending on the provider)
Retaining full attachment and message edit history, with the ability to export all messages and files sent through a given channel (including private ones) or DM, including deleted ones (legal departments love this)
Logging IP addresses users login from
Auto-logging out users after some length of time
Unlimited custom emotes (you'd have to buy Nitro for your employees and make emote servers if you wanted all the Party Parrots)
Discord has no business oriented features. Skype for Business, Cisco Jabber, XMPP, IRC, etc can be run in-house and logged extensively, but Discord is a black box. Smaller businesses might use Discord since they can have free voice chat & unlimited messages, but once they get a legal department they'll be advised to use something else.