As the “tech guy” who my family turns to for advice, I do not have a single family member other than my younger brother who has any interest in AI-assistance. My brother wants it to cheat in school.

“God I hate it when other people try to make conversation with me 🙄”

I use CalyxOS and keep airplane mode on when I’m not expecting any calls over the celluar network 🤷‍♂️ I suppose youre right that Ive never seen an ad for Discord, I also just haven’t seen ads in well over 5 years. I did assume they advertised so if Im wrong thats on me. I refuse to be a product and feel others should as well. If people want to sell themselves in exchange for a money-less service I suppose thats their own decision.

Phone number point is stupid to bring up because most public discord servers turn on the setting that prevents you from speaking until you’ve verified a phone number, and I’d trust signal with my number over discord any day of the week. I never said general users should jump ship, I said that the reason they DONT is because other platform dont have the advertising budget, nor the user base to make users jump ship. People act like they give a shit about features but as soon as they can only talk to their friends because they all left for one platform, even if its “worse” because of the feature set, they WILL follow or be left out. Its why I originally joined Discord, I didn’t want to leave Skype but thats where everyone was going. I am now taking the other side where I refuse to use discord. I use Signal and Matrix. if people want to talk to me, they talk to me on there or not at all, and ykno what. Ive gotten 20+ people to switch.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/discord-starts-down-the-dangerous-road-of-ads-this-week/

They definitely sell user data. There is no doubt in my mind about it. I think the idea that Signal can’t be used in the same way is down to the marketing, especially sense Discord is now trying to transition away from gaming https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/discord-is-pivoting-away-from-games-to-become-your-place-to-talk- Signal literally has the same features + more than discord. You dont have to reveal your phone number to strangers anymore. Usernames are there. 1k+ member group chats EXIST. (I’m in one for fight for the future), screen sharing exists in calls. Theres no reason to need discord unless thats just where everyone else is.

You can screen share on signal so that argument makes absolutely no sense. and people down voting me without explaining why are probably too stubborn to switch away from discord.

Genuine question who is still using snapchat. I deleted my account ages ago, not because I was on my privacy crusade like I am now, but because I noticed all of my friends stopped using it and everyone else on there was like 5 to 10 years my junior.

There are viable alteratives, but they aren’t making money and can’t advertise. Signal is a prime example, its an amazing platform with feature parity + more to Discord. Regardless of how well a platform is polished, you need users. People will use the shittiest platform ever if it has users (Twitter and Reddit come to mind).

The point was not the amount of money they are making, the point is that regardless you are being sold for profit. Any platform that is ad-driven should be avoided if you want any form of privacy.

Issue with this argument is that if you are found to have hacked their servers and stolen an API key you bet your ass theyre suing you for stealing their property. Their argument is “laws for thee not for me”. I agree with you if we are only talking about copyright law.

If you want Something you can set up and forget, use YUNOHOST, otherwise learn how to use docker containers and pick any server distro. Debian, Fedora Server, Ubuntu Server, MicroOS, hell OpenWrt will all do fine.

pay to become products* FTFY

I wish. no in school suspension

I would assume ISS, then regular suspension, then expulsion

People shit on Ubuntu because its owned by a for profit corporation that hosts an app manager that isnt open source on the backend. Not sure why you heard hate for mint, its perfectly fine. As a beginner I’d definitely go for Mint. If you Genuinely want to try but feel like you need someone to hold your hand, I can add you on Matrix (or discord… ugh) if you want a person to reference.

My old HS recently implemented an app to go to the bathroom. If you dont check out in the app you are written up. Source: my younger brother

Stop with the what-aboutisms because this is not the current situation.

And then no one will use Signal because there is no way someone won’t notice immediately. It is OPEN SOURCE. Look at the xz backdoor that got figured out in less than a day. Signal is more popular than a Linux tool for extracting files. Stupid statement.

Doesnt change the fact that Matrix is not a single company.

No, it isnt. Telegram is not E2EE even though they claim they are a private messenger.