Just earlier, I posted about how self proclaimed Reddit ‘alternatives’ and ‘replacements’ wouldn’t replace the site. I said this because they were too focused on the tech stack, gave very little attention to non political topics and tried to copy Reddit for every single aspect of their site’s structure.

But that made me wonder. What is Reddit’s likely future competitor at the moment? What sort of service could really threaten them?

Well, I think I may have figured out it. It’s Discord.

Yep, the chat service that’s already eating Skype and Slack for lunch could actually end up being Reddit’s biggest competitor. Sounds crazy right?

Probably. But there’s method to the madness here. Why?

Because Discord (unintentionally) ‘solved’ one of Reddit’s biggest problems.

What’s that?

The negative mainstream media attention. Basically, one of Reddit’s biggest problems is that once a ‘controversial’ subreddit gets discovered by the mainstream media, all hell breaks loose. Comments from it are published everywhere. Witch hunts start against participants leading to job losses and social breakdowns. Reddit itself often outright nukes the community to avoid hits to its reputation.

It’s a mess all around.

However, Discord doesn’t have this issue. Why? Because unless you are explicitly given access to a community, you have no way to know what’s being discussed there.

And while that’s obviously bad for SEO, it’s great for communities who want ‘the media’ to stay out of their business. People with unconventional political views, modding communities and fan game communities, ones dedicated to certain topics that may make others uncomfortable… all can thrive on Discord, and the effect of their presence on the platform or its reputation is nil.

This also means it avoids invasions, raids and brigading too. You can’t have a ‘Shit Discord Says’ section, because the users have no easy way of knowing what other communities on Discord are saying. It’s pretty amazing really.

Either way, it’s effects are pretty visible online. Communities that used to use Reddit (like Source Gaming, Fusion Gameworks, Pokemon Uranium and various others) are now moving to Discord for their main place of discussion. Forums which were super active before (like Smashboards) have lost a fair bit of activity to their Discord channels.

And heck, some communities which aren’t even on Reddit (like various speedrunning and ROM hacking communities) are using Discord to its fullest extent. For many of them, Discord occupies the space in their life that Reddit, internet forums and Usenet did for generations before them.

But hang on, you may start asking. Isn’t Discord a chat service while Reddit is a link aggregator?

Yes. However…

Two products or services don’t have to be ‘direct’ competitors to beat out each other. Social media took a lot of mind share from traditional internet communities, despite being completely different in structure and its goals. The internet in general has done a number on magazines, newspapers, record companies and video game shops, despite none of these things ‘directly’ competing with its internet replacement.

Discord is a poor alternative for Reddit in every sense, just like Reddit itself was a poor alternative for forums in every sense.

But it solves people’s problems they had with the original format, and captures the ‘low end’ audience that wouldn’t be convinced by features. It’s textbook low end disruption.

And if Reddit isn’t careful, that could easily end with Discord taking their audience and eating them for lunch.

Still, what do you think? Could Discord be Reddit’s replacement? What do you think about the possibility of it and similar services taking advantage of the built in privacy to keep out tabloid media folks?

Post your thoughts as a response here, or reply to me about it on social media today!