Discord is a proprietary instant messaging platform which was developed by “Hammer & Chisel, Inc.”, now “Discord, Inc.”, and publicly released on May 13, 2015.¹⁾ At the time of this writing, it's a popular chat client that now boasts having over 150,000,000 active users.²⁾

In the beginning, Discord was introduced to Reddit as a “gamer-oriented” platform,³⁾⁴⁾ during a time where people were growing dissatisfied with Skype under Microsoft.⁵⁾ The execution and timing couldn't be any more perfect as the platform was a rousing success to the general populace, especially after video calls and streaming were quickly rolled out to everyone after a month of testing in 2017.⁶⁾

However, they did have some bumps in the road, like the alt-right⁷⁾⁸⁾ and “pedofur”⁹⁾¹⁰⁾ situations. By 2020, Discord dropped “app” from their name¹¹⁾¹²⁾ and announced that they would shift away from “gaming”,¹³⁾ presumably to increase marketability.¹⁴⁾ There were concerns about Microsoft acquiring Discord,¹⁵⁾¹⁶⁾ but it ended with Discord opting to remain independent.¹⁷⁾¹⁸⁾

“Nitro is completely optional with features that don't take away from the core of Discord.”
– Discord¹⁹⁾

The platform offers a paid subscription services that grants extra features, but the differences between the Nitro tiers are conveyed in this confusing, haphazard manner,²⁰⁾²¹⁾ so I've reorganized the most important details into a much more readable chart shown below. As a warning, be careful when you choose “Nitro Basic” since the platform will attempt to switch your plan to “Nitro” if you're not paying attention.

Following a United Kingdom exclusive test run,²⁶⁾ Discord suddenly revealed that “Nitro Basic” would replace “Nitro Classic” on October 20, 2022.²⁷⁾²⁸⁾ While this new plan is cheaper, it offers significantly less features than the previous plan. All users previously subscribed to “Nitro Classic” were assured their plan and benefits will continue as long as they don't cancel their subscription.²⁹⁾

During the Among Us popularity spike in 2020, Discord announced “social party games”,³⁰⁾ but jumped the gun³¹⁾³²⁾ as they wouldn't roll this out to the general public until October 18, 2022.³³⁾ Upon the release of these “activities”, most games could only be initiated by Nitro users,³⁴⁾ but this restriction was eventually lifted during the social platform's month-long 8th anniversary event around June 15, 2023.³⁵⁾

• Discord will ask you to verify your account using a phone number if flagged as suspicious.^36)37)38)
• The server owner or administrator can disable the activity feed in server settings.
• Ban evasion is against the community guidelines and is reportable.³⁹⁾ I wouldn't suggest ban evading since it's really not fun. You have to reinstall the client, deal with reCAPTCHA v2, etc.
• In late 2018, Discord added an arbitration clause to their Terms of Service,⁴⁰⁾⁴¹⁾ which is meant to prevent users from filing a class-action lawsuits against them.⁴²⁾ You can opt-out by sending an email to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com within the first 30 days of your account's creation or after the terms went into effect.⁴³⁾ If you missed the window, then you're out of luck.
• During National Hispanic Heritage Month, the company had used Latinx in 2021⁴⁴⁾ and 2022.⁴⁵⁾
• MEE6 SUCKS.

• Discord - The front page of Discord.
  • @discord, @discord_jp, @discord_fr on Twitter - The official accounts.
• Discord Status - It doesn't immediately update when there's an issue.
  • @isdiscorddown on Twitter - Unofficial account. Same issue as above, sometimes.
• /r/discordapp - The official Reddit community, a mix of complaining and support.