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 week 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 week 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 5 points 1 week ago (2 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 6 points 1 week 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 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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.

[–] NewOldGuard@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I exclusively use Matrix for social experiences. I’m in servers and group chats for clubs, communities, and even Lemmy instances. Works great

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

How did you find them? How many people are in them? There's no hub for community discovery for matrix-based communities, to my knowledge.

As I said in another comment: 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.

[–] scholar@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Do you use voice chats in the same way that Discord allows you to? Can you hop in to an empty voice channel without having to initiate an end to end call?

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In what ways?

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 1 points 1 week 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 6 points 1 week ago

That sounds like a frontend issue. Not a protocol issue

[–] littleomid@feddit.org 3 points 1 week 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 week 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 week ago (1 children)

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

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

That sounds like a frontend issue