Discord New Usernames - A Step in the Wrong Direction

Discord ain't gonna listen to me or anyone about this, so it's probably pointless to just whine about it but I still gotta. On the bright side, the new Discord usernames have some good things going for them in terms of accessibility and connectivity. They've blocked people from snagging trademarked usernames like Amazon, Apple, Samsung, and stuff. That's a smart move to prevent scams and impersonations.

The only thing I really like about this new username thing is the ability to have a Display Name. That's super cool, and I've been excited about it since Discord added nicknames, haha. Right now, I'm more like why not keep current usernames but add Display Names?

But here's the deal, one of the major problems I've noticed is that some users are taking advantage of the system by completely changing their usernames and tags just to get the specific username they want. These accounts were probably made way before most accounts and they have Discord Nitro, so they get priority with the desired username. It's not only confusing, but it also beats the purpose of the update. Discord should have a way for users who changed their usernames to a certain name before a certain date to have priority in securing that name or something like that. That would be fair and stop people from gaming the system.

Also, they could have handled the username transition better. The slow rollout to avoid overwhelming updates is okay, but it would have been nice to get clearer info about the timeline and what criteria determine priority. Like, do older accounts with Nitro get more priority than newer ones with Nitro? That would have helped our expectations and dealt with concerns about this update.

Discord, I get that you wanted to fix some problems with the old username system. But honestly, these changes have caused more problems than they've solved, in my opinion. Many of us really care about our usernames and identities on Discord, and it's sad to see the unique and personal nature of usernames being taken away, even if we can still be added and recognized by our old username and tag after the change. But that doesn't help people who loved a specific username (handle) and can't get it back just because someone else claimed it and it's supposed to be unique.

I know this post won't change anything, especially since the update has already started rolling out. But it would be nice to have more transparency about the process, some measures against users who change their usernames just to secure a handle because their account is older, and a clearer explanation of the priority for nitro subscribers and account ages. That would address a lot of concerns.