How do we know this won't be another Discord?

[peq42]

How can we know this won't be another discord some 5 years from now?

Being open source is nice and all, but so was ANDROID until google bought it and started closing source and not releasing drivers as often for custom ROMs.

So, if this isn't federated(aka, no one can host their own, or move to a different instance if the main one becomes bad), what guarantees me this won't be yet another discord down the line?

[bbbonnibel]

@peq42 People can host their own. https://deepwiki.com/stoatchat/self-hosted

[isitreallyalive]

I think it's still a valid concern to have. Even if Discord could be self-hosted a lot of people wouldn't move to another instance because of their data being trapped.

[Nasher73]

Revolt Platforms Ltd is a company, not an association or foundation, so concerns are legitimate.

[ThomasJRyan]

Revolt Platforms Ltd is a company, not an association or foundation, so concerns are legitimate.

Hadn't thought about the company vs association/foundation aspect of it. That does actually raise a few concerns. At the end of the day, a company is out to make money and that doesn't always mean doing right by your customers.

That's not to say it isn't possible though. There are companies out there that aren't shady and do well to remain that way. But it could be nice to see Stoat change to something a little more open in the future.

[albotroz]

If the developers or whoever is behind Stoat/Revolt go too far, there will be a fork. That's my guess, anyway. And forking is easier than developing everything from scratch—as is the case with Discord, since Discord is just messing things up.