Boosting not worth it - Ripoff.

Comments

44 comments

  • Drayx11

    As a note: this post wan't created to blindly throw shade at the developer, but as a way to criticize in the hope that the discussion will spark a reevaluation of this bad corporate practices, as Discord itself stated, is used by "250 milion daily gamers".
    Feel free to adress this topic in a civil way. 

    12
  • EngIo

    All of the features in Boosting were already implemented into the client years ago, but were gated off for verified servers (only Hypesquad Events/Partnership at the time). The reason why the benefits from boosting are so minimal is because they were only designed to be a small edge, and very little extra work needed to be put into monetizing them and pretending they were new additions.

    Let's not forget how in the blog post advertising the changes, they used the original boosting figures of 2/10/50 (I'm still laughing at how they expected people to get 50 boosts) instead of what was actually being used, 2/10/20, to cover up how they were actually making it more expensive to reach every tier beyond tier 1.

    Boosting a server to 30 is a total of $1049 even with the Nitro discount ($979 if you're already using the 2 included Nitro boosts). These prices are quite frankly exorbitant and the reason nobody is buying boosts is because they provide absolutely minimal benefit to you, and very likely benefit nobody at all because you need to spend exorbitant amounts of money to push a server up in tier. The cost of putting a server at the very lowest tier, with the discount, is $70. You're nearing the price of a World of Warcraft subscription, but for a glorified IRC client. As bad as modern WoW may be, I don't think anyone would argue the fact that it still has more content than Discord.

    While boosting is conceptually okay if executed well, in its current state it's demonstrating a massive disconnect between the developers and what a user can reasonably afford. It legitimately feels like they're exclusively trying to target a whale audience with this, and not anybody else in their userbase.

    15
  • Ane

    None of these things you mention that you think you are suddenly paid for, were ever free. VC was always 64 kb/s. 50 MB upload limit was 5 before nitro classic came around. 100 MB was only introduced recently. A lot of users don't remember, but nitro was made back when Discord was still kicking off. Initially, it wasn't about the perks. It isn't a paygate. They created it for a simple way for users to help support them, while getting some small things in return. A lot of people see it as "Discord Premium" now but it was never intended to be that. Nitro was a way to keep the platform running ad free while getting small perks like 50 MB upload limit and emoji access across all servers. Besides investors, the only way discord makes money is through Nitro. I would not say they are as well off of a company as you seem to think they are, but there's also no way of knowing (unless of course you work for them). 
    I'll have to disagree with your post. Since none of these features you claim used to be free, ever were. Nitro boosting allows us to have perks that previously only massive verified, partnered, or etc servers could have, and if that's a premium free, I'll take it.

    -17
  • Drayx11

    Allright, we will have to agree to disagree from the start , because i know that no matter how much backing/facts i will ever provide to back my opinion/statements, discord fanboysm will persist even touugh they have a sub bar business freemium model.

    So, starting with "None of these things you mention that you think you are suddenly paid for, were ever free." Yes they were, i don't have a clue if it was because me and my friends were among the first people started using the app, if we enrolled into a beta program or whatnot. 

    You also seem to ignore the fact that this are absurd and out of touch prices , where people WOULD want to support them if only they didn't overpay by that much, we are approaching , like Englo said, WoW subscription prices, or i might add, Netflix.
    Simply put the amount compared to the benefits is not the only problem. The lack of choices and the greed they are trying to push alienates the majority of those self claimed 250M users. I will have to repeat myself because it seems you either did not read my whole post or you didn't care enough to adress all of the points i made. No regional prices, no option to permanently buy the features or buy them separately , asking a s**t load of cash when they make SO much money. 

     

    As for "Besides investors, the only way discord makes money is through Nitro. I would not say they are as well off of a company as you seem to think they are, but there's also no way of knowing (unless of course you work for them). "
    - I do not indeed work for them but a simple google search will reveal that besided selling merchendise:

    In December 2018 the company announced it raised $150 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation. The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners. With this latest bout of cash, Discord  has now pulled in more than $280 million in funding. - As of dec 2018, Techcrunch. 

    So is this the small indie company that we so need to support to stay afloat? Not to add that the current cost of doing business in this sector is much, much more smaller than you think it is. And is not about not giving them money, i am not making that point , is that i WOULD give them money if only it wasn't this expensive, bad perks/$ plus the monthly subscription. Is 1.700$/y  ever ok?

    I invite all to this thread, but please if you're going to blindly take a corporation's side , you would save both of our time by not starting a pointless discussion where you won't change your mind/opinion no matter how much evidence is presented before you. 

    15
  • Ane

    You're being as closed minded as you seem to think I am. I don't like the absurd prices, but you cannot base how much discord makes off of 1. Estimates and 2. How much the company would be worth if sold, because, a valuation is how much the company is worth if the owner sold it, and the 150 million is just an estimate. No one besides the inside of discord can confirm those numbers. So I'd take them with a grain of salt.


    On top of this, I never stated them to be an indie company. I told you that when nitro first started, that's what it was, and the intention. It had immensely less users than skype, and immensely less users than teamspeak. Now, things are definitely different, but that's what nitro started as. Whether it's still that or not, is up to the company's vision for Nitro. They also don't sell merch. I've seen them give it away at conventions, but they don't have a merch store so I have no idea where you got that idea from?

    I'm not blindly going into this. I think that boosting is ridiculous as well. I just don't agree with how you went about addressing it or your suggestions or reasoning. I think that Nitro Classic should get a boost, and I think that regular users should be able to buy boosting. I think that the boosting is absurd, since it supports the server not the individual user, to be priced at nearly the same amount even with a discount as NItro Full if you have classic already. And not letting yearly subs to nitro buy monthly boosts is also very stupid. I don't agree with your claims on the voice quality and such, because that has never been the case and I've been a server owner since I started discord. Maybe your server has constantly been used for testing of these features, they do that with plenty of servers, but for most, that is not the case.

    Appreciate the insults and assumptions though. I'mma yeet now.

    -19
  • Drayx11

    Ok, first of all i didn't insult you and not planning to as i invited everyone to a civil discussion. BUT i am free to assume anything about your intelligence level as you are free to do that in return. 

    Please allow me to quote yourself without cherry-picking, for the last time im going to debunk what utter false information you wrote:

    "They also don't sell merch. I've seen them give it away at conventions, but they don't have a merch store so I have no idea where you got that idea from?" 

    https://merch.discordapp.com / or merch(DOT)discordapp(DOT)com . 

    bUt yOu Re nOt gOiNg BlInDlY iN tO tHiS , 

    Do you, yourself, "Ane" , know even what an estimate is? Utter misinformation and ill will in passing facts as opinions just to serve your own:
    "1Estimates and 2. How much the company would be worth if sold, because, a valuation is how much the company is worth if the owner sold it, and the 150 million is just an estimate. No one besides the inside of discord can confirm those numbers. So I'd take them with a grain of salt."
     So here we go:
    1 The company is ESTIMATED to be worth at bare minimum a whooping 1 billion dollars. https://www.businessinsider.com/discord-funding-2-billion-value-2018-12

    2. Indeed this is not how much they earn. And yes, i can pull an educated guess of how much money they have by the fact that after the 2nd investement round they got over 279 million dollars. If you want me to break that down for you, not all the investment fund actually goes into investmend, wow, big surprise, but a lot of that remains as actual funds, suplimented by the cashflow of different partnerships, nitro subscriptions and actual free marketing. 
    I provide sources, i put the low effort of actually tiping 3 words in the google search engine, unlike you who tries to refute information based on feelings. Please yeet some common sense into your noggin and stop derailing the conversation by playing a victim and a fake sympathizer. 

    Appreciate the ignorance, i'mma go eat now. 

    0
  • Ane

    Calling me: Unintelligent, Ignorant, a sympathizer, a victim card player, and mocking things I write, isn't civil, and definitely is an attempt to insult, but aight. Anyways, good luck with this thread. I'm going to be removing myself to the convo. We'll agree to disagree, just like you said initially, even though I even tried telling you I am partially on your side. Cya, have a good night/day man.

    -2
  • Drayx11

    Oh please, you just played the golden victim card. Cite where exactly i called you unintelligent. PLEASE , and after that you might respond to the actual points i raised, And as far as i know, showing that what you wrote is utter bullsh*t is not called mocking, Ignorant? Excuse me, i'll adress you with "The almighty, all-knowing" from now on, you clearly showed that you definetly are an expert about the topic at hand, and clearly, there is no dicord merch shop, or they don't have funds.This is the effect of debunking all that you have claimed. And my assumption of your intelligence you can clearly guess, but i am respectfull enough not to call you out outright --> wE lIvE iN a SoCiEtY and i need to keep myself PC to not stir up other babbling lurkers to dilute the conversation even further from the original idea. 

    Come to think of it, im trully at fault here. I caught the trolling bait whole heartedly. Peace , mr trollo

    -6
  • ActuallyLegendaryBro

    Why do you complain about a feature? Just let the feature be there. If you don't like it, then you don't do. On my opinion is Discord Nitro completely worth it, since it'll contribute to the whole server and you can sometimes get additional features that are set by the server.

    Edit: If you continue so, then the feature maybe will get removed, meaning that Nitro will be less worth, do you really want that?

    -8
  • Aquila

    ActuallyLegendaryBro, I honestly just think it doesn't worth 10 bucks per month.

    11
  • kittymiku1247

    I haven't the SLIGHTEST CLUE where you're all getting your prices from? But assuming that's american you're entirely wrong.

    Nitro is $10 a month (which is fair considering the benefits like importing animated emojis and livestreaming movies and stuff with all your friends.)

    And boosts are $3.50 each.

    It takes 30 boosts to level a server to max level.

    That's less than $100 to max out your server. I have NO idea who told you $1000 or $900 or whatever. But you're wrong.

    This is coming from someone WITH. a maxed out server. (By the way? Having a vanity link is cool as hell) discord.gg/syleria

    The bottom line is this wasnt designed to be entirely paid for by one person.

    It was designed to reward communities that have come together. If everyone just used their two included boosts. That's only 15 people needed to chip in!

    At this point my server is in the thousands and 15 contributors feels like a very easy goal. I understand not all servers are large but these benefits are DESIGNED for large servers. And no these features were not available before it's always been a 5mb upload limit and 50kbps audio. >_>

    0
  • Koios (Ergo)

    $100 dollars a month to get a tiny banner, an image on invites, and 100 MB file sharing. It's almost as if it's made to be paid by many users. The cost of my 1000Mbs internet.

    It's still bullshit trash and forces us to us other means to send files. It's already easy enough to use google. 

    Mixer lets you stream fast. Win+G and you're up. 

    A fix would be making Nitro linked to your server. Giving all the stuff you sub that Nitro for. 

    11
  • Koios (Ergo)

    @ActuallyLegendaryBro
     Might be that some of us have an issue with fawning over others. We have our own friends and groups and the only people that will pay into your severs are fans and the obsessive people that pine over a person. Almost no one is boosting to support a community that isn't focused on some sort of lust for a single individual. 

    You can't panhandle on the road so you do it on the internet. There are of issues with the situation and this is a single reason of many to take issue with. If someone starts selling a service for excessively overpriced amounts compared to all over forms of the server because they have the most in their communities. Could you picture Facebook Premium?

    4
  • ziplock9000

    I do think that 10/month is very expensive for 1080p desktop streaming. The rest is fluff. It should be 1.99/month.

    10
  • enqryptive

    youre acting like the entire service itself costs 500$ per month

    -4
  • MonstroMart

    ziplock9000 It's not 10$ a month though. If a single user want to get 1080p streaming it's 4.99$ US a month which is sort of fine. There's not much difference between Nitro Classic and Nitro outside of the 2 server boosts and 50MB file upload instead of 100MB (nothing game breaking there). For a single user Nitro Classic is perfectly fine.

    I think the point of this post is to express how much the 2 server boosts are lackluster for small communities. Let's say you want to boost your small community of 18 regular people to level 3 perks. It's going to be 30 x 5$ = 150$ USD a month to boost your server. I don't see many people paying that alone. So let's say the community (of 18 regular) will be boosting the server. Then by buying Nitro, 15 of them will be needed to boost the server to level 3 perks. But then what's the point since almost all people in the community will have Nitro and it would be less costly for them to just get Classic. Server boosting is great for big servers like Ruin Gaming with lot of people. 15 Nitro members is required to get the level 3 perks and then the remaining people get the benefits without paying. But for small communities it's pretty much useless.

    I'm the GM of a small WoW guild and i would like to boost my server. I like Discord and i used to pay for a TS server back in the days. I jumped on Discord right away not because it was free but because it was awesome. I would gladly pay to boost my own server but the only perk i really care about is 1080p streaming. If you're alone to pay it's just not worth the price asked to boost your own server. I feel like the level 1 perks should offer more so that the owner of a server could boost it alone and improve the community. I don't know 7020p60 screen share and 1080p30 GoLive! maybe. But as it is the level 1 perks are almost pointless and for a small community boosting the server with Nitro instead of just getting Classic is not cost effective as it will require pretty much everyone getting Nitro to get the perks thus not really requiring the server to be boosted anymore.

    2
  • Borg

    Server boost cost and modeling needs to change. The current state of things is made for Fat Cat customers. It's pretty much capitalism the way things are with boosting. We started boosting our discord server some months ago thinking, "Great, this is helping Discord stay alive and us to enhance our server." Then we saw how things really work and decided that it was ghastly expensive upgrading level tiers.

    Long story short, we won't be investing anymore money into discord boost other than to maintain our level 1 tier so that we can stream in 1080p. We'd like to pay for upgrades, but not recursively the way things are now. There is literally no good incentive for small to mid and even large sized communities to upgrade their servers. Until things change, I we won't spend another dime on server boosts. Our community will also not be contributing boosts to our server because they know the cost to reward value is realistically unreasonable nor fair.

    1
  • Real_Bruh_

    +1

    Discord server boosting is not worth IMO. I see a tough future for discord as a company. I already see many of my friends who boosted servers in past are unwilling to do that now. IMO, revenue expectations may be justified but I don't think that the value of the purchase is appreciated by users after initial few months. With incoming investments and soaring valuation of the company, the story of supporting company through boosting of servers is very hard to digest. I doubt if discord has huge number of recurring payments from users beyond 2-3 months. Even if they have it now, that retention average could be going down with time.

    0
  • Yoda

    I'm a huge fan of discord and I know they struggling to be profitable right now but the server boosts need to be reworked and offer more feature at the top end.

    Level 3 gives 384 kbps audio, completely useless in a gaming industry where everyone uses a gaming headset. There is a diminishing return with audio bitrate above 128 it would be extremely difficult to tell the difference.

    +100 server emojis. This should be way higher for the amount of money that is being put into the 30 boosts.

    Vanity Url is a good perk to have at this tier even though it's at no cost to the company.

    100 MB upload limit is also a stretch and not really utilized. Gamers share clips, 100MB clips are hard to come by. Everyone just uses youtube or which is free.

    Discord can do better if they have more tiers in between or offer more features at the top end.

    I am an admin of a discord and we are close to hitting the 30 boosts mark, I'm not against it because I want to support Discord as a platform, but imo they will make more money if they offer something more enticing.

    -1
  • Borg

    Real_Bruh_

    That's just it. Small servers struggle to populate due to this whole issue and unless you've got a large volume of clients on the server contributing, it all falls on one or a few people to pay the bill to keep the perks up. Discord is making money hand over fist already as it is. There is no real legitimate reason to do what they're doing other than to scalp their customers for everything they can - which they pretty much already do. Until they change their boost model, we're not boosting.

    Discord figures they're doing the right or best thing for their business, but truth is they are missing out on a vast population that would be happy to pay them once and continue paying for Nitro to maintain the levels they've paid to have. I'm not paying $50/mo. for a Discount subscription through Nitro and a $13/mo. fee on top for Nitro just to maintain access to some few features in level 2. Just to maintain level 1, you have to stay subscribed to Nitro to keep that level.

    What Discord is doing with this Boost subscription model is straight up and flat out financial greed. The only way it's going to change though is if people stop throwing money at them for level 2+ subscriptions. Pay your Nitro access to maintain your existing level 1 and leave it at that. It's really the only way Discord is going to even listen to us all. Until people do that though, Discord has no need to change anything. 

    0
  • SparklingSoph

    I honestly think that the server system is ridiculous 
    Why?

    Well, let’s start with the fact that it is $10, for animated emojis? Animated avatars? Custom tag? What about the people who luckily get the 1010 title? Or the 7777? Etc etc. I mean, jump into reality. Nitro is only really to show of.

    If you have deep pockets, go ahead! It’s your money, not mine. But for the ordinary people, it’s ridiculous.

    2
  • fred

    Why is it so god damn expensive to get 1080p stream in 2021? Just boosted a server to Level 1 and never realized it does not unlock 1080p streams.

    This vague "high quality streams" badge is just inches away to be considered a fraud dishonesty.

     

    0
  • ! Demmenter ✌

    Your all mad that this company that made an honest app wants money? My bad the people that made this want money from it. if you spent this much time on an app wouldn't you want money? the "low cost" of servers is still cost money. and a 100 dollar a month salary, first of all, that's not even minimum wage second those people won't be using discord anytime soon since they won't even have the money for f o o d. The idea of nitro isn't you boost your server all on your own. You have people in your server each do a few boosts and then you have a lot and level 3 unlocked. its not complicated. Im not rich no where near it id barely say I'm middle class but 10 dollars a month really? you complain about that? and if you want it without the boosts its 5 a month? really? what else are you gonna use that 5 dollars on? stop whining. nobody wants to hear you complain.

    -2
  • ziplock9000

    No, that's not what people are complaining about. It's value versus cost that's the issue and your value isn't the same as others.

    Can you say "make money" another time?

    2
  • Borg

    ziplock9000 it's pointless to have a discussion about better business with people who lick the boots of the companies and corporations that like to bleed them dry for every single subscription, feature or upgrade to get better service. There is simply no getting through to people who've been brainwashed by a company into a certain way of thinking. Free thinking is pretty rare nowadays and ! Demmenter (Little Fire) doesn't want to understand anything because their brain has been washed of all logic and sense that should be common. This is why we have so many problems with not only Discord, but other programs and subscription services, season passes and so on. It's one thing to sustain a business and profit, but a whole other thing to be blatantly scalp cash by any means possible with recursive fees.

    2
  • ! Demmenter ✌

    Is 10 dollars a month really that expensive for you? 5 dollars? If it's so bad go use anything else. 

    -2
  • Borg

    ! Demmenter (Little Fire) firstly to start off I'm going to say you need to drop your Discord fanaticism into the trash can and leave it at the door in this discussion. Nobody is saying Discord is bad. You simply don't want to understand nor do you actually get the point people are trying to express here.

    I'm not sure where you've been this past long while, but boosting cost a lot more than $10/mo. Maybe in the USA it's $10/mo., but elsewhere, it's not. When you do the currency conversion outside the USA, prices change. For example in Canada, the price jumps to CDN$12.69. However, this is not what we're actually talking about here. We're talking about boosting and maintaining those boosts. When you upgrade to level 2 or 3, it is a monthly recursive fee. Not a one time fee, but a recursive fee that happens every month. If you stop paying for the Discord Nitro subscription, you lose your levels. So, you have to keep paying to maintain boosts and the Discord Nitro subscription. Stop paying and you lose even lose level 1!

    Using Canada as an example again, even with discount of 30% they get on server boosts, just to reach level 2 and maintain it is CDN$45.37/mo. So that means in total just to receive a few marginal benefits, people have to fork out CDN$58.06/mo. (before taxes keep in mind too) for such few noteworthy features that actually make the server better. Lets say 10,000 people (again, Canada used as example) are subscribed to Nitro and boost their server to level 2. That comes to CDN$580,600/mo. that Discord receives just in one month from all those people. That's only for level 2! Do the math for level 3 boosts times 10,000 people. Your jaw will hit the floor. For people in Canada to boost to level 3, even with the discount of 30% it cost CDN$97.72/mo.! Start doing some math and you will see for yourself just how ghastly expensive the services are as a recursive payment.

    This is why people want it to be changed to a one time fee for server boosting while still maintaining Nitro subscription fees to keep levels. That's fair. Discord makes money through many other venues than just server boosting. There needs to be a better balance. It would not only help them make more money, but also give us more incentive to actually spend money on the Discord services, games they sell, cosmetics and merchandise. The way boosting is set up is short sighted greed and all it's doing is making people not want to spend money.

    Furthermore, Discord is backed by investors including Benchmark Capital, Tencent, Greylock Partners, and Spark Capital. So if Discord is backed by these other corporations and making what they do, most of us can probably agree that Discord can afford to be a bit more flexible with their business model and make the business end of things with consumers, more consumer friendly.

    Discord is making ample money and more than the general public wants to acknowledge. Anyone who can do basic math can see these things for themselves. It's pure robbery to ask for so much and deliver so little. between levels and then charge for cosmetics, merchandise and sell games on top which I didn't even include in any of the above figures. Just imagine how much they make from other things. Discord is making huge money and that is a fact. If they weren't their investors wouldn't even be backing them.

    Your statement shows your closed mindedness. In future, think before you speak. 

    1
  • Borg
    fred

    Why is it so god damn expensive to get 1080p stream in 2021? Just boosted a server to Level 1 and never realized it does not unlock 1080p streams.

    This vague "high quality streams" badge is just inches away to be considered a fraud dishonesty.

    You notice that too, eh? 1080p isn't actually as solid as claimed by Discord. I've talked to many people who've said the same thing and with regards to the stream quality, it's hit and miss. When I streamed at level 1 everybody told me the stream was pixelated or blurring and choppy at times. It's always hit and miss. This stuff happened many, many times too so it's not an isolated issue with streaming. We pay to unlock true 1080p not 320-1080 quality when a stream is set to 1080p quality. I don't appreciate having to explain to the viewers why things are so crappy and that the quality is out of my control.

    ! Demmenter (Little Fire) take note of this too. This is why people have a problem with recursive Boosting. What you see is what you get and it isn't worth what Discord is asking on a monthly basis, for server boosts.

    -1
  • clee666

    is the Level 1 720p 60fps as pixelated as their supposedly 720p fps?  I don't want to pay 10$ to have a shitty quality at a higher framerate.  Twitch is also 720p but everything is clear. 

    0
  • Borg

    clee666
    If quality is primary for you, use Twitch. It's not worth it paying nitro and server boost monthly on Discord. With Discord, you're taking losses and not getting what you should be getting. There is no guarantee of streaming quality by Discord. As mentioned above in one of my previous comments, I had been streaming and testing the service for months and came to the conclusion that the streaming services are subpar and doesn't adhere to any real quality standards. 1080p streamed like it was varied between 320p-1080p almost every single time I streamed. It's a gamble. You never know if the stream will be OK one day, garbage the next or in an hour into the stream. The quality of what we get versus what Discord is asking people to pay out shows us who's getting the better end of the deal.

    Discord = greed before need.

    0

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