Discord users are cancelling their Nitro after new mobile layout update

Source: like 7 people on ~~twitter~~ X

Ye, but it's significant since that's 80% of the Nitro subscribers
- Make it 70. I am a Nitro sub actually make it 40 I have 3 other friends that are as well. Well now technically 30 because I have an additional friend in Sweden who pays for it. I have fiber my friends and I stream games the higher streaming quality is worth it. I also use Vencord to add some additional features.
  
  More people pay for things that I think are given credit for. I don't mind spending money on a product I enjoy with my friends.

Personally, I think the update is a genuine improvement. Everything is more intuitive, and labels for the UI was very much needed.

Yeah, same. I didn't even touch the friends tab at all, so having it as DMs works better for my purposes. But Discord is trying to be the app for so many purposes I'm not surprised people are upset by a major UI change and having it be different to the desktop layout.
- works better for my purposes
  
  For yours, not others. That's kind of the crux of the issue with most UI changes nowadays. They're made for the "average user" and the average user has the most basic needs, utilizes few advanced options, and takes advantage of the least functions. They don't even glance at the settings menu.
  
  And when your primary goal developing software is to serve that audience, you will end up inevitably prioritizing aesthetic over functionality over time, until you've got...well, until you've got the reddit mobile app.
  
  "Look pretty, do less"
  
  And every time you do that, you're pissing off your power users a little more.
  
  As with most issues with UI changes, they could be solved by giving the user options to customize their experience to their needs, but the idea of customizable UI is verboten nowadays for consumer apps.
I dislike a couple things -- swipe to reply in general, hiding the server member list within search, and the way they laid out the new tab that combined DMs and friends list. Making the friends list horizontal profile pictures to scroll through is just annoying. Other than that it's fine.
Yeah, it finally feels like a mobile app that you can use without having to know the layout of the desktop version first. A friend of mine that never used the desktop app really struggled with basic tasks on the old mobile app.
Yes, it finally makes some goddamn sense. It’s still awful, but I find it genuinely easier to find the things I want.

Every time I open discord it just generates popups about features.

Its fucking annoying.

Making a separate button for patch notes like everyone else would take too long.

Odd, I was pretty happy when I got the update. I always thought it was odd that servers and PMs were mixed somewhat in the UI, and hard to distinguish between.

People just don't like things being different than they were ig.

Or is there another change I didn't notice that had people bothered?

I don't dislike all the changes but the removal of the left swipe gesture to access current channel information and pinned message is a huge negative change to me.
- I agree, this throws me off more than anything else with the changes.
- Oh OK, I guess this seals it, I don't have whatever new version people are complaining about, left swipe still works for me. I was reading through the posts trying to figured out what changed, and none of it sounded familiar. I got a discord patch yesterday, but maybe the fold phones don't have the same version as bar phones do.
  
  Edit: Ah, if I close discord fully and open it on the little outside screen instead, I get the new version. That is definitely too many changes to make at once. Weird that I just have both versions.
Before it was better because all of the messages were in one place.

I mostly use discord for dms and now for some reason I have to switch to a different tab to access them, it's annoying and unnecessary.

App is also slower now.
The two big problems for me are (1) increased slowness and lag, and (2) phantom notifications (a red 10 dot in the bottom notifications but I click in and see that it's empty)
- Having used it a bit more, I can definitely agree on the lag. Crazy bad.
Been a while since I used the new thing, immediately hated it. All on mobile.

First of a, the bottom scroll thing on my phone to select a server or whatever it was just ain't it. I didn't use it much, but it seemed extremely annoying to move between dm and servers, especially if they weren't the top ones. You can get lists and such by swiping.

Second was that server channels turned into a huge mess. Showing the last message makes absolutely no sense on any server I use. Especially on bigger game server like destiny group finding one's already long lists turned into miles long lists. Absolutely unusable. I need things compact and clean personally, having the channels big and wide wastes so much space, and again long lists.

Being in a server hides any notifications and dms too.

Everything that was close at hand before is now far away. And that sucks for me.
"PMs and servers were hard to distinguish with"

Uh, no they weren't.
I'm not sure anyone is complaining specifically about the DM button, that's the one change that's probably good? Like it doesn't do much for me, and I wouldn't care if they didn't also change how the DM window works. Or how the swiping works in the server.

Wait, really? It's not even that big a change! That's a hell of a thing to cut and run for

It's quite a massive change and significantly impacts usability in a lot of cases and it also makes Discord no different from any other app.

If they had just kept the server list in the direct messages view this would've been way less worse.
- I’m so confused. When I got this unexpected change I was so excited. This is exactly what’s been wrong with the UX in that app. It’s so much clearer now
- it also makes Discord no different from any other app.
  
  Seems to be the consistent theme now. Legitimately, no app seems to want to have its own visual identity anymore, it's all the same shit, in white or black, with the same floating squircles, wasted screen space, laid out in a manner that provides less information. It's depressingly lifeless and Corporate Memphis levels of inauthentic. The result of a CEO saying "do an Apple" to the UX team, because they gotta hook that young demo, rather than do anything original, identifiable, or interesting.
  
  And they certainly aren't about to spend any amount of time appealing to tech literate power users, or (god forbid) people who like to customize their own UIs.
- Discord was never usable for almost all handicaps
  
  Source I work with blind developers
- puttin buttons at the top is a terrible ux for mobile apps
- Wait what change are we talking about? I don’t see any huge changes on iOS.
- I just looked at the change, fully-prepared to feel outraged and claim they're changing things just to change them.
  
  Nah. It's a fantastic, logical change imo. Same as when Firefox decided to move the address bar to the bottom.
- Outside of a minor appearance change, they moved direct messages out of the server list and into their own space (never understood why they did it that way before), and added a way to quickly reply to a message at the expense of having to tap the channel name to see the member list instead of swiping... I'm missing how this is a massive change here and how it significantly impacts usability...
You should have seen how mad people were over the time Discord slightly changed the shade of the icon
They've just seen this as an excuse to stop paying Nitro.
- They could just stop anytime, they don't have to justify it
discord users are snowflakes
- Sure thing grandpa, let's get you to bed. Joe Biden can't hurt you there.

Imagine paying for Discord in the first place

I don't pay for Nitro but I don't have a problem for people that do. Servers aren't free so it's that or ads.
- I swear Lemmy is against paying for anything. So many freeloaders in this world.
- Wrong. They sell user data.
- I pay when it's half off, mostly for streaming quality. Their full price is kind of insane.
I don't really get this take. If you don't like Discord Nitro, simply don't buy it. If you enjoy the features Nitro adds and don't mind paying the monthly fee, then buy it. I don't really understand what shaming people who pay for Nitro accomplishes.

Wait, the new UI I got yesterday? With the servers and messages finally finally separated? I like it personally. I struggle to find my DMs on the desktop app vs servers and never found the overall UI intuitive. I am usually the first to get upset over UI changes (looking at you Google Messages!), but for once I am happy.

One problem I have with it is that it's harder than ever to get to the members list. You have to click a thing at the top of the screen rather than just swiping from the right.

Otherwise I'm mostly happy.
- I have no idea how we got to it before at I mostly use smaller channels and friends, but I just tapped on the # channel-banner-name at the top, without having to think about it too hard. I have never seen this screen until now, but having separate tabs for all the shared links, media, pins, and members is something I wish more apps did.
  
  I hope they can find a happy middle ground for users, or give users enough customization options where they can configure what works for them. I hate that only 3rd party apps for things like Reddit and Lemmy actually give you control over your interface. Is it too much to ask to have customization options like the old days? 😥

I always initially hate UI changes, will make my decision in a few days if I like it

Look at you with your emotional maturity and introspection. Not sure you fit this place! :)
- Oh look, we've finally hit the "this place is full of morons except me and the people who think like me" point. I guess we're on our way to being a reddit alternative after all.

Discord offers subscriptions and micro transactions in a chat app. This is the future of everything thanks to people going "oh it's not so bad".

I mean, they have to make some money some way..
- And who determines how much money they need? Some c-suite asshole who wants a 3rd mansion?
I like nitro for the audio and stream quality benefits. It’s not much money and makes the experience with friends better.

Doesn’t seem much different than streaming services asking for more for 4k streaming.
- I have shit internet so the audio and stream quality does matter to me - its the universal emojis and sound board that keeps me paying. I'm not ashamed
- ...stream quality is fully controlled by client side.
  you don't need nitro for streaming at any quality you want to, just any client mod
- Then they ask for a little more... Then a little more... This is why Netflix is $20/mo now because not enough people have the will to do without. These companies make you feel as if you're missing out or that you can't survive without their services, and when that happens they own you.
Considering how much is free and how much of a better experience it is compared to competitors, yeah, it really is not so bad. The MTX boil down to a few cosmetics and ability to use more bandwidth (ability to upload bigger files, stream in 4K)
"oh, at least there are no ads"
except they're shoving microtransaction ads literally everywhere.
Various practices that make you feel like you're missing out by not buying nitro.
Profile decoration shop ads almost in every single place.
There's even a dedicated nitro gift button on the message bar.
- What discord client are you using? Mine never hits me up for MTX's. I know nitro is there, but there's no intrusive pop ups.
- Imagine getting peer pressured because of emojis. Seriously if you dont want to shitpost with emojis, you're not missing anything.

This is honestly just people hating it because its different? There is no feature removal, its just built differently. Also i find it disgusting that THIS is why people are boycotting nitro. Imagine being comfortable supporting probably the largest service hosting CSAM (and not doing much about it) but drawing the line at it taking an extra tap to view server members.

CSAM?
- "Child Sexual Assault Material". An alternate name for "Child Porn" (CP).
I mean they've broken the app for me. After about 15 minutes the message window won't refresh regardless if I change channels or servers. Notifications take me nowhere so I need to go find the event myself. I'm only a light user so I'm sure there is more. It's not just because it's different, I actually like the new UI better.

although i use a different mobile client that's built on older code (aliucord for those curious!), i still tried out the new update and it isn't terrible imo. what i mainly don't like is the server list and dms being completely seperate now, how spaced out things are, the swipe to reply feature, the members + pinned messages list being moved, how messages don't have a smooth little transition/animation when you send them. there are some things i like, like how in the members/pinned messages list theres a media and links tab now.. and other things i don't remember right now lol, but the cons outweigh the pros for me.. back to aliucord i go :p

Have they stopped banning accounts that use 3rd party clients ?
- i haven't noticed any activity on my end, but i think it might be cus im only active on like a handful of servers. im thinking the more active you are in more places, or the more active you are in the community, the more likely they'll notice you and stuff, yk? im thinking that's why even though i use 3rd party clients on both pc and mobile, they haven't done anything to my account
I actually hadn't noticed the tabs, I really like that

One Google search on Dextero and I will pass one using it as a source of information.

deleted

People pay for nitro?

Yeah I like being able to shitpost with meme emojis from other servers and keep the one platform me and my freeloading friends use, alive. I ain't going back to Skype and god bless the souls on Teamspeak.
- Mumble, mumble.
- You could always switch to Matrix.
  
  Don't fool yourself into thinking that you paying for nitro is adding to discord's longevity.
  
  You're just lining the pockets of people richer than you.

huh, I opted into the new layout months ago. I got use to it quickly.

Edit: I went back to discord to find the server tray/drawer the beta had disappeared. If this is the final version, I’m surprised people are upset. The drawer was the most radical change.

Reading this, I just switched to see as well. That drawer was atrocious UX, and the new design without it is actually pretty good.

I don't find myself getting frustrated with having to tap repeatedly to do anything, and the separation of DMs and servers is cleaner and more intuitive than the old layout where they were mixed together.
- well the drawer sounds nice in theory, but the implementation wasatrocious.
  I'm actually not against just putting the server list at the bottom, as discord is basically unusable with single hand atm
Yeah I’m confused too. I like this new layout
- The only issue I have is not seeing the server channel listings. I’ll get over it but I’m not a fan of that when selecting a channel now. Also in the experimental features they have a thing called like launchpad? I think. I fucking love that guy.

The UI changes are horrible. They make it so it takes more taps to get to places. Idk who is in charge of that but they need to reevaluate things. Also paying for discord is hilarious. But people unsubscribing is the only way they might roll back.

It’s always been a mess. This is imo at least a bit better. Crazy that a company of this size does UI so horribly.

Yeah it is bad.

I actually like it lol. I guess I’m in the super minority.
- I just took a look and it seems fine. Way easier to access messages which is the main reason I use discord on my phone. I thought the UI was shit to begin with so it's hard for them to do worse.
- You're not alone. Especially over the past few months, fonts on mobile seemed slightly off. The new design looks way better in comparison as the typography is consistent across the entire app.
  
  I dunno. Just speculation (here's a grain of salt but) people may be sick of Nitro because of all the features that Nitro users are asked to pay more for. It's weird to remind people who are paying a subscription for an app that there's a store where they can pay more for stuff.
- You're not. Some opeople are overreacting big time. "change is bad". This ux change is so minor compared to what some other places have done in the past...
  
  Like always the vocal few are making are making a mole hill into a mountain again.
- Yeah I think it's a lot better, looks nice and is easier to navigate around
- I love it

I cancelled my nitro years ago because what exactly is the benefits that I can’t do with being a freeloader? Besides I’m sure they scrape all my data anyways

Not a user of discord, by what are the reasons people use nitro for ? And who would be the audience to purchase this ?
- Non shitty camera/streaming quality. I spend time with my daughter on discord so I want the best possible experience as we play and laugh together.
- Larger file size uploads was my main incentive.
- I just like using animated emotes

It already took too long to go to DMs from the base screen. They really need the ability to have a favorite list that includes both.

I dont understand the outrage. It's slightly different, oh no. Back in my day, we used a shitty bright white Windows 95 style UI voice chat program called Ventrilo, and WE LIKED IT.

It's not about the DM button being moved, it's about all the UX they broke in halves. They changed how swipe works, they changed how the DM list works, they changed how search works, none in a good way.

For a lot of "power users", changing how swiping acts goes in direct opposition to the muscle memory, so that's annoying. Some functionality is just gone or is made much worse, like no longer seeing images in search and no longer having autocomplete for the filter terms there. You can no longer look at the DM list and then go back to active DM because swiping there was turned into a dumb back button replacement.

And above all, this is just a canary in the coal mine moment - they do not care about their current app, they will do whatever they like and people are understandably uncomfortable with that.
Good old Vent, lots of great memories there
We had ICQ by the time I was 16 or so....

I'm glad I can use a custom client on Android.

Which?
- Aliucord since it's not using react native and supports plugins
aliucord user 🤝🤝🤝

How do I persuade my friends to switch to Mumble? x]

How do I persuade my friends to switch to Mumble?

you wanted to say teamspeak right? right ?
- Ventrilo

What I hate is the new button art or icon style or whatever, it's more bubbly and less readable at a glance now.

Is it bad if I liked the change? I don't use discord too much though

No. Like what you want regardless of what the crowd says.

I'll never understand why companies try to force major changes without giving users the chance to opt out, at least for a while.

Edit: -1 for an uncontroversial personal opinion. The hivemind is strong today.

Because fracturing the UI doubles the work needed on feature changes each time it happens.
- Not really. Stop maintaining it, but leave it for those who want to opt in to it. Exactly how old.reddit worked. They managed to avoid most of the backlash for their new UI because us diehards could stick to the old one.
This change actually has been out for a while, I've been on the layout for the past year or so. It's just recently they forced the existing user base onto it where before it was in opt-in, once you get used to the layout it's actually quite a bit better in my opinion it goes with the mobile flow a lot better, it's just getting used to it for the first week or so sucks. It's all so much better than their original redesign which had all of your servers on the bottom with your DM and you had to swipe back and forth between the servers to try to find it which was absolutely atrocious
- Oh that original redesign was terrible. And it was insanely slow even on a flagship phone. It's much, much better now
That's easy. You have some 'product manager' or 'UX lead' who gets hired. They need to make a name for themself, and keeping the old thing going won't do that. So you get a big redesign. There might even be some QA testing to see if the new design is more intuitive. There will rarely if ever be any testing to see if whatever benefit the new design brings, is offset by making existing users relearn the whole thing.

If you want to destroy my ~~sweater~~ app, hold this thread, as we walk away

Updated today, don't see a difference.

the change was apparently reverted

The Articlea does a really bad job at explaining it, but apparently the server llist was made to be horizontal instead of vertical
- Ah, that reverting makes sense. I had the new UI for months, now all of a sudden I have the old one again.
- Hasn't the server list always been vertical?

Actually black theme already won me over

Don't get how anyone likes the new UI. I downloaded the regular discord app (I use Aliucord,fortunately still on old UI) real quick and literally could not figure where anything was.

What can't you find?

@L4s when i really need it, i use roze.lol

otherwise, nothing there is worth it

I fucking hate UI changes

All of them?
- All of them
What kind of brain rot do you have where taking a few moments to re-figure out how to do things again is too much for you. Ever consider that maybe UI changes are to make things more accessible as well?

Discord design team has been utterly useless since they changed to the dark theme being the default in like 2016

they just tried to justify their overstay and over-payment by changing shit for the sake of changing it

if people werent lazy such lazy apathetic blobs i could have left the platform years ago.

I managed to get barely a hundred people to switch from a 3k server and after a couple of weeks most stopped talking altogether, internet communication sucks man.

Who cares

I can't believe people on here unironically use discord. I thought only zoomers and pajeets were it's userbase.