Matrix, Fluxer, Stoat

I don’t talk to people. People are stupid. And seeing as I’m part of the people demographic, I admit that I, too, am stupid. So don’t talk to me. /jk

I use this niche software called Lemmy, idk about you guys tho

Mostly Signal with friends and Matrix for various FOSS stuff. I’ve installed Discord recently because a potential employer hosts their communication there

I switched to matrix some years back, but it was too much upkeep for my non-tech family and friends, so we mass switched to Signal. I never used discord, but I’ll date myself by saying I’ve used IRC, MSN, and Skype in the before times.

Matrix, Signal, Nextcloud Talk

Deleted discord when they started rolling out third party AI age verification if someone reported you and round the same time they were doing other shady shit.

Signal and Matrix, never used Discord though

1. zoom, voice and always video
2. messenger, voice and 50-50 video, usually with Portal TV Unit (every day it still works is a blessing). Call hand-off between Portal , phone and desktop mid-call are really well-done, so my wife’s mother can easily switch to her phone, take the call up the stairs to her office and show me the thing on the cam that is messing up (usually printer lights) and then take the call back down to the living room and portal.
3. teams as ordered, voice, and video VERY rarely
4. gChat briefly when it’s important enough to suffer the UX and connection glitches, voice and accidental video
5. zello if people have it and the situation is dynamic
6. mumble if people can find it

No value in discord for me.

Skype was eventually quite usable, despite increasingly wrong-headed UI fuckery. It started and ran a call nicely, and supported cross-device chat really well. I miss it.

I’m still hoping we can re-flash the gorgeous PortalTV hardware into something more usable in today’s versatile world or find something like it (easy setup, voice calling if LLM API for voice commands, rock-solid reliability, no fucking subscriptions).

Signal mostly, my circles know I’m chronically offline and thus not on big social platforms. The folks who don’t move to signal know my number and text/call me as needed which isn’t often or super sensitive because the rest of the conversation usually happens in person ¯\(ツ)/¯

ETA: I also have a couple contacts on Simplex, at their behest not mine. Not a fan of the voice/video quality to be honest but it’s fairly secure at least

I replaced Discord with Fluxer and use it for all my gaming groups. Several hours per session weekly.

I’m on IRC some of the time, mostly Libera. I’ve run and used a self-hosted nextcloud chat server a little, and have fooled with Jami and Jitsi Meet. At my old work we used Slack. At another one, Hipchat. I’ve never used Discord.

XMPP

Gajim for Linux and Windows, Monocles on Android. There’s an iOS client that’s pretty good too.

Fluxer, Matrix, IRC and Telegram… each is used by different groups, so I’m stuck with all of them.

My college has a mandatory server that you choose your roles for every semester to enter your course chat, where you get your homework and reminders of assignments.

We use signal with my family and my friends. But we are not actually spending much time together chatting, we rather coordinate meetups or video calls.