Steemit feels like a pretty free-thinking, freedom-minded community.

That's the whole point of decentralization, isn't it? The whole platform is kept afloat by witnesses who invest their own time and equipment in keeping it running, and it's filled with content by people who have said "no" to the centralized info grab of the big three social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

That's why I'm bewildered that so many posters here spend so much time hanging out on Discord.

First of all, I'm confused by the program itself.

It may be that I'm getting old and slow. But I just can't wrap my head around how the different chat rooms and channels work. There's just too much going on! And once you find a place where you might like to have a conversation, it's either dead in the water, or whipping by so fast that you barely have time to be stung by the vitriol that's pouring out of everyone's keyboard.

For me, it's the ultimate manifestation of why I have to get away from my computer most of the time. I don't think I've got any kind of clinical ADD (please don't prescribe any meds...) but it's hard enough to focus on writing something when Facebook is pinging away in another tab, Spotify has moved on to some playlist that just isn't doing it for me, and Youtube is full of a bunch of new stuff to watch.

That's why I've been resorting to this tried and true technology when I want to write these days. It's the only way I can sustain a train of thought for more than five minutes.

One of the things I like most about Steemit is the way conversations move along at a comfortable pace, in posts and comments. I can read something thoughtful, mull it over during the day, and sit down to compose a comment when I've got something worthwhile to share. With the rest of the internet - and Discord in particular - I feel like I'm at one of those cocktail parties where I finally have something funny to say about a part of the conversation that happened ten minutes ago.

Secondly, I'm disturbed by what the Discord software does to our computers - and with the fact that nobody seems bothered by this.

Any software that sets itself to launch automatically at startup gets a big "no thanks," from me. Yeah, I know that Spotify does this, and the Steam gaming platform, and lots of other Windows software. (Not in Linux, though.) But in most cases, it's easy enough to disable the auto-launch in the settings.

I can't find a way to disable it with Discord. When The Wife installed it to interact with some of the groups she participates in here, it slowed her computer to a crawl. Booting takes ages now and she has to click through extra pop-ups before she can settle down to get any work done, whether she's connecting to the internet or not.

Even when you close the program, it keeps doing its thing over in the system tray.

This is another big no-no for me - software that doesn't terminate when you click the big "x" in the corner. Stop means STOP, and I shouldn't have to memorize a safe word (or right click a hidden icon) to terminate an unwanted process.

According to Spyware Watchdog, who got a big shout out from digital freedom and open-source activist Richard Stallman, Discord represents some of the worst spyware people are runnning on their PCs today. And because the source code isn't available, we have no way of knowing the full extent of what it does.

Discord is spyware because it collects all information that passes through its communication platform. As Discord is a centralized communication platform, all communications have to go through Discord's official servers, where all of that information can potentially be recorded. The vast majority of said information has been confirmed to be recorded, such as all communications between users. Discord has also been confirmed to use other spyware features such as various forms of telemetry. Discord's main source of income is from investment, from which it has received over $279.3 million dollars[4]. Discord cannot be built from source and the source code for Discord is unavailable.

"Discord is a centralized communication platform."

Seems diametrically opposed to Steemit's philosophy, doesn't it?

When you "close" Discord, and it sneaks down to your system tray - just what is it doing, tucked away down there in the background? Probably the same thing it's doing while you use it to text, voice, and video chat: collecting and sharing who-knows-what with its corporate paymasters. And those investors, whoever they are.

We do know this: Discord keeps "logs of all of the other programs that are open on your computer."

Again, from Spyware Watchdog:

Discord can also tell which devices you use, as it uniquely identifies each device, and how much you use those devices, as it can record your device usage habits (since Discord is usually open in the background so that it can receive messages). Discord also records every single interaction you have with other users through its service.

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I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade here, or judge, or complain.

Mostly, as I said, I'm bewildered.

And it makes me curious. In a community obsessed with decentralized content, freedom of expression, individual rights and responsibilities, and good old fashioned stick-it-to-the-man rowdy behavior, why do so many Steemians use Discord to chat and interact?

I've certainly heard lots of people on here crapping on the big three social media platforms, for good reason. But if you read Discord's terms of service document, it's clear their communications grab is just as sweeping.

Doesn't it bother anyone else that the meaning of the word discord is "disagreement between people," or "lack of agreement or harmony between things"? Or it's a musical term indicating unpleasantness, "a chord which (in conventional harmonic terms) is regarded as unpleasing or requiring resolution by another."

Resolution by another.

Who is that going to be?

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Do you use Discord?

I'd love to hear about your experience in the comments. Do you feel it brings value to your experience on Steemit? Do you use it for gaming or communicating with people in other communities? Does it impact your computer's function?

Should I take off my tinfoil hat and hang out with y'all over there?

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