Discord
An app for online communities to chat by text, voice and video in shared spaces.
Discord launched in 2015, founded by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, as a way for gamers to talk while playing. Its basic unit is the server: a community space, free to create, with text channels by topic and voice channels that work like open rooms. You do not call anyone; you just drop into the room and whoever is there can hear you, the way you would join friends on a couch.
It quickly outgrew gaming. Today there are Discord servers for study groups, fan clubs, artists, open source projects, crypto communities and online classes. Moderators set roles and permissions, and bots handle chores like welcoming newcomers, running polls or playing music. Midjourney, the image generator, famously ran its main interface as a bot inside a Discord server.
Discord is free to use. It makes money mainly from Nitro, a subscription that adds perks such as better video quality, bigger uploads and custom emoji, and from other paid extras. Because servers can be private and huge at the same time, moderation is a constant challenge, and the app has had to deal with harassment, scams and illegal content like any large social platform.
Keep in mind
- Launched in 2015 for gamers; now used by all kinds of communities.
- Servers hold text channels and drop-in voice rooms.
- Bots and roles help moderate and automate large groups.
- Free, funded mainly by the Nitro subscription.
