Slack, Discord, Skype, or IRC?

Anonus · 2016-11-10 01:49:48

Which do you prefer?

Princess Alice · 2016-11-10 01:51:17

IRC

Yarrun XIX · 2016-11-10 01:52:05

Discord is new, but it's growing on me fast.

Skype is verboten at the moment because of What Happened, but it's still a good program.

IRC's always been a bit finicky for me.

Never even tried Slack

eriophora zia · 2016-11-10 02:05:11

IRC. I've been established on there for years. I have a very strong preference for it. I don't like voice chat in general, which is a large-ish part of discord.

eriophora zia · 2016-11-10 02:05:50

Slack is cool I guess, but it's basically just monetized IRC so I don't really care about it overall. I'd rather just use IRC since it does all the same stuff, really.

Princess Alice · 2016-11-10 02:07:55

The best part of Slack is that you can react to other people's posts with emoji

LOAD Cherry · 2016-11-10 02:12:24

I enjoy discord because I play overwatch with my friends, and it's set up for gaming voice. Theoretically, I could also stream to my servers via twitch, too~

Yarrun XIX · 2016-11-10 02:16:28

Wait, you play Overwatch, Cherry?

What do you main?

Tre · 2016-11-10 02:26:33

Discord and Slack are definitely the most convenient because I like their interfaces (particularly on my iPad) and they aren't a pain in the ass. I use them less than my other messaging apps, but that's largely because I myself haven't integrated them into my routine so much yet. (We'll see if I come around. It'll probably be with Discord for personal affairs, because more of my friends use it. Slack, depends on if I get a job that uses it.)

IRC isn't a pain in the ass, but I feel like it's kind of limited in functionality compared to the former options (which, for all intents and purposes, are both interpretations of it that integrate convenient and modern features that feel natural in 2016). I don't mind getting on it, but I don't particularly relish it either. It's just... there.

Skype is Bad™ and I Dislike It™. It was a pioneer in the early days of the video chat revolution but has all but been completely supplanted as the easy option in that regard by FaceTime, and beyond my old high school group chat (which was admittedly fun due to the wonderful folks involved) I never even bothered with the text chat because it felt half-baked compared to things like Hangouts or Facebook Messenger

since I'm thinking about them now, might as well:

Facebook Messenger is a genuine pleasure to use, it has probably been the main thing keeping me tethered to my FB account for the better part of a year now. (I also appreciate the fact that it has evolved and grown to the point where the manufacturers themselves are scrambling to replicate its features; just look at Allo and iMessage in iOS 10 and you'll see what I mean.)

Hangouts is beginning to show its age now that Google has fixated its focus on Allo and Duo, but my friends still keep it around because it has greater platform support and because there's really no real incentive to switch over to Allo right now because Hangouts isn't broken (unless you have a One M9 with the stock ROM, in which case, it was unusable as of a month ago), which might not be the case in the future but we aren't there yet.

I don't use iMessage because I am without iPhone and I don't feel like it would be worth using on my iPad without a way to send messages through my phone as well. (Dammit, Apple! Quit with the ecosystem bullshit already!)

LOAD Cherry · 2016-11-10 02:41:19

Yarrun XIX said:
Wait, you play Overwatch, Cherry?

What do you main?

The idea of maining one hero's kinda dumb and impractical, but I usually tank or support. I've been getting good with Zarya, and D.Va and Lucio are two of my strongest heroes.

I REALLY wanna get good at Sombra.

Also, I play on PS4 until I build my next desktop.

Anonus · 2016-11-10 03:03:33

I can't get over how Overwatch has a character named "Sombra" now

Yarrun XIX · 2016-11-10 03:04:43

I'm still disappointed that it's Clara from Watch_Dogs. I wanted another Omnic, dammit.

LOAD Cherry · 2016-11-10 04:21:54

Not to derail, but the next hero is probably a tank named "Doomfist" and based on the posters in Numbani, the current Doomfist is an Omnic.

Imipolex G · 2016-11-10 04:22:53

Out of these choices, I'd choose IRC.

But honestly I prefer a forum like this.

SF_Sorrow · 2016-11-10 04:30:09

Discord is sleek and IRC is simple

Section42L · 2016-11-10 04:30:52

SF_Sorrow said:
Discord is sleek and IRC is simple

glennmagusharvey · 2016-11-10 04:37:46

IRC is my favorite. It's:
* lightweight - can run on a shoestring internet connection (all you need is dialup speed)
* many possible ways of using it - web clients like mibbit or networks' dedicated webchat pages, as well as installable programs like mIRC and Xchat/Hexchat
* its format is plaintext, which means that anything from it can be easily copied into anything else, and logs are easy to save and take up very little disk space
* many available networks freely accessible; not dependent on a single company

Doesn't have video or voice chat, but for having a near-infinitely customizable interface and being able to run on dialup or weak wifi, I'll take this.

Discord seems to be very multifunctional but I still haven't learned its interface so I don't use it much. Its interface is kinda confusing.

Slack I have never used.

Skype is an interface that's more familiar to me, but also less fully-featured than Discord, and its interface might actually be worse than Discord's.

Anonus · 2016-11-10 04:38:51

I find it hilarious how Skype has been around for years but it's already getting its ass kicked by Discord

Obā-san · 2016-11-10 04:43:18

none

eriophora zia · 2016-11-10 05:04:44

Skype mostly existed for so long out of inertia rather than actually being good at what it did.

Klinotaxis · 2016-11-10 05:06:40

irc

run it for days and it doesn't crash or use half my ram or anything

Tre · 2016-11-10 05:14:02

eriophora zia said:
Skype mostly existed for so long out of inertia rather than actually being good at what it did.

Yeah, that, and Microsoft bankrolled the fuck out of it in a (somewhat successful) effort to try to strong-arm its way back into the lead of the messaging game after MSN Messenger (pfft) fizzled out of the public interest.

Anonus · 2016-11-10 05:14:46

How long will it be before Slack or Hammer & Chisel get snapped up?

Tre · 2016-11-10 05:16:50

It worked, but they haven't done a good enough job of making it appeal to modern audiences, and I dunno about the rest of the world but it seems like almost all of the people I associate with have gone to greener messaging services as a result.

I dunno how many times I've seen Tumblr yelp about how Discord's going to kill Skype, but it is no small number indeed.

Tre · 2016-11-10 05:20:29

Anonus said:
How long will it be before Slack or Hammer & Chisel get snapped up?

I give 'em both two years max. Slack in particular is scared of what's going to happen now that MS is getting into the game with Teams, so I wouldn't be surprised if it happened sooner in their case.

Discord seems ripe for some weirdo company to take the reins, I just don't know who. Maybe it'll be Amazon again?

Slack, Discord, Skype, or IRC?

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories