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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[–] AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 week ago

too overwhelming in UI/UX for majority of people coming from Discord

Uhhh, Discord's user experience is one of the most chaotic fever dreams I've ever come across, and is a large part of what makes me want to get away from it (among many other reasons).

One of the really frustrating things about Discord is that people are using it for things that it's not good for. Like documentation, or really anything where a new reader is looking to find a persistent source of information. Chat should be good at chat, and wikis should be easily accessible on the open web - not in an obscure digital group that has to be joined to be seen.

It's like when people start a business and then use facebook as their "site." No that is not a site, and you know what, I don't want to shop there anymore either. Same energy.