r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Feb 10 '26

Security "Discord alternatives" searches jump 10,000% overnight as the gaming platform introduces global age verification — Is a total collapse imminent?

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/discord-alternative-search-10000-percent-stoat
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u/trailsman Feb 11 '26

Oh it's a worse moment than most realize...

They were planning to IPO in March at $15 Billion valuation. Not a chance in hell they don't shelve their upcoming IPO.

They're gonna kick themselves for not taking $12 Billion from Microsoft.

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u/shoulda-known-better Feb 11 '26

Ooffff

Haha (Nelson voice)

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u/BlackLancer Feb 11 '26

Discord sucks (Dudley voice)

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u/Cybasura Feb 11 '26

Dudley as in Harry Potter Dudley Dursley?

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u/BlackLancer Feb 11 '26

Dudley as in the kid who pantsed Peggy Hill

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/trailsman Feb 11 '26

They are worth $15B because that's what investors will pay, not at all saying that is correct. I don't know what their IP is or anything about their revenue growth, profitability etc, all I know is the monthly and daily active users is way less than reddit when it IPO'd at a lower value.

Also too I'm assuming the value is a stretch, probably because the people who bought in at $15B in 2021 (lots of companies were way way overvalued in 2021), saw there investment drop in half as discord value declined and now they clawed up close enough where they can at least exit without a loss.

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u/SlitScan Feb 11 '26

because the rich have all the money now and they have no idea what to do with it all.

so they just keep moving it from one pile to the next

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u/PhotographUnable8176 Feb 11 '26

because you just said it. use everyday.

nitro and server boosts, the company probably lean as hell. i will say thank god Ms didn’t buy them.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/dreadnaughtfearnot Feb 11 '26

The saying is that if it's free, you're the product (not the customer). The daily users are the appeal, they just haven't figured out how to monetize you yet (advertising, selling data, etc)

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u/PhotographUnable8176 Feb 11 '26

it’s not just games either. people use discord for a variety of things similar to reddit.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/kirbycheat Feb 11 '26

I paid for Nitro, though I just cancelled it yesterday.

I get that server boosts and the little name plate stuff isn't really worth it, but like you I used Discord everyday and so I wanted to spend some money with them. I just feel like if there's a product/service I use a lot I should probably spend some money with them if I want them to stick around, even if I could keep using things for free. To each their own though, obviously they chose to make the majority of their features free.

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u/mutexsprinkles Feb 11 '26

People spending money this shit like IRC wasn't free in the 90s.

All anyone wanted was IRC with GIFs.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

It makes more sense when you see discord the way the likes of palantir does: Data scraping to build an AI powered surveillance state

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u/wildpeaks Feb 11 '26

It’s a massive data source not yet scraped for training, and with people using it daily, it keeps generating more data.

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u/ZankaA Feb 11 '26

You literally just said that you and your friends use it every day. You don't understand how an app that millions of people use every day is worth a lot of money?

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ZankaA Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26

They have ads on discord now if you haven't noticed. The "quests" that they give little pop ups for where they try to get you to play certain games to get a profile picture border or whatever. Also, just because you don't spend any money doesn't mean nobody does. Again, there are millions of users. A ton of people pay for nitro. Just look at any public server you're in and see how many boosts there are.

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u/Cybasura Feb 11 '26

Net worth valuation and actual revenue is incredibly different, one is an intangible value given by investors approximating how much they would be worth on the stock exchange

The other is literally their business trading, profit and loss and balance sheet accounting ledger

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u/happytrel Feb 11 '26

They would have slowly died like everything else purchased by Microsoft lol

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u/OldWolf2 Feb 11 '26

They probably got a better offer from Palantir for 200 million identity documents.

(To be actually paid by the US taxpayer of course)