Comment by dingnuts 2 months ago
You only need two friends and a chat server to have a community. I've been running one for my friends, like a self hosted discord, for almost ten years. It is by far my most valuable online space. There's maybe a dozen users. Whatever. It's great.
They don't need to be. Web forums and mailing list are useful when you want to form a larger community with a central idea or project. A chat group is mostly an online hangout place, kinda an equivalent of a favorite bar or a reading club.
What I don't like is when people wants to use a chat group where a forum would have been more useful.
I'm on a couple of email lists that have a similar vibe. A dozen or two active participants. No ads, no giant corporation trying to push engagement or steer the narrative. You just have to ignore the occasional FOMO feelings and understand that no, trying to find "community" in a sea of 10,000,000 users on a giant social network is not how we are wired.
irc if you don't require any bells and whistles. matrix if you want attachments and encryption. zulip if you're running a company.
I don't mean to advocate for Discord (they sure don't need it!) but if the requirement is to host an exclusive space for a dozen people, Discord does that.. you just make a "server"/guild and only invite trusted friends.
This doesn't solve any of the other problems (what happens when Discord enshittifies? Is it acceptable that Discord updates basically every single day? Is it OK that they constantly advertise video games in the form of little notifications saying "stream 30 minutes of _____ to a friend and unlock an avatar for your profile!"?) but it does seem to solve the 'how do I have a platform for my friends and I to talk" one.
> stream 30 minutes of _____ to a friend and unlock an avatar for your profile!
Sounds like enshitifications has begun already
Absolutely. I'm in about 10 communities like this. I don't think I need global reach or hundreds or thousands of "friends".
For a wider net, I have a self-curated feed on Lemmy and Mastodon. It's super clean and positive compared to suggestive social media.
The old Internet will never be back, but The Good Parts still exist and can be remade. I don't have to visit the shitty parts.