Discord doing the big dumb

So there's gonna be an update to how usernames work in Discord. Tags won't be a thing anymore, instead you have to use a unique username no one else will have and then have a display name, which I think is how Twitter works.

I miss old internet but this is one thing I can easily live without: having to worry about taken usernames and trying to come up with something unique. Sure you can just add numbers to your name and it'll be no different from how it already works but do you have any idea the lengths people will take over an 'original' username? This is only going to encourage hacking and RWT.

I will not name this site for safety reasons but I came from a site where people made a HUGE deal about having cool and original names. People will and did hack other people just cause they wanted someone else's name that badly. People would create fake emails and hoard a large amount of names just to then sell to the highest bidder. There's actually a well known story within the site's userbase about someone spending 100 dollars just to have the account name Goku. Also one infamous trait of the userbase is users would harass other users for having numbers in their name and refusing to speak to other users who don't own any original account names. Why? Egotism. They don't wanna talk to any unpopular poor peasants who don't have 500 dollars lying around just to own several cool usernames.

Older accounts will have an earlier chance for this update so possibly the multiple accounts owned by one person might not be a problem, unless for some reason they made a bunch of accounts long ago. But I still don't see the logic and need to be "like other sites" as the update message said. Apparently another reason for it is worry that someone can't use a name they want cause 9999 other people could be using it already. While possible, it's very unlikely that'll actually happen.

Gosh I want to move on from this naming system. Or at least make it where no one but you can see your username like Steam does. They do use the custom URL thing but I've never seen people make a big deal out of it, maybe it could be different since if you hack someone you're also getting their games and wallet, and that might be a bigger reason to hack them anyway. But yeah just make the actual username unseen or just have an email to use for log in and then a display name.

Would also be pretty cool if we just kill off Discord. But no one wants to leave it, it's too familiar and cozy to everyone so they probably don't want to bother with anything even slightly less convenient to use.

Thank you for listening to my internet war story