TL;DR usernames in the new system are more like friend codes than usernames; Discord should treat them as such
icq needed no usernames! We walked up hill both ways to the internet
dang, I forgot my icq but I was proud af since my icq number is really low, most of my friends at the time have one or more digits than I was.
I still know my id…I haven’t used icq in well over a decade.
I was just thinking about icq today, about the notification sound it would make like oo oh
I feel like I’m alone in being happy to switch to usernames. The 4-digit always seemed strange to me, and any time I’d ask someone for their name they’d always say “Oh, I’m name!”, and then inevitably someone would followup with “What’s your weird number thing?”, and they’d say “Oh yeah, let me look it up”.
Being able to use effectively the same username you use everywhere else is miles better IMO.
Maybe someone here can explain what was so appealing about the number system?
Unique usernames cause issues with having to come up with wildly “creative” names to be able to be called the same thing everywhere if the platforms get big enough, or start adding loads of numbers to everything. Unique usernames also create prestigious names, which people most certainly care about, especially for branding or clout.
The discriminator system was clever, as it let people just pick names that they felt resonated with them better, while also keeping everyone equal - you didn’t have a prestigious name like “adam”, and everyone else who just wanted to go by adam on the internet had to add extras to it. Instead, everyone was given the extra numbers so nobody was special.
Now obviously, the username in itself is not that special, and nobody really goes by their username, but a lot of people do assign some value to their online identities and handles, and Discord just sidestepped that by putting everyone on the same level.
There were issues with the username system, but I don’t think the 4 numbers were it. You absolutely do memorise your 4 numbers if you’re adding people constantly for some reason, and if you’re not, it’s not exactly a major inconvenience.
From my experience, people who are happy with the new system already go by somewhat unique names, so this makes it easier for them.
The note at the end about the new system working as a URL system for user profiles is interesting, because around the time the change was announced I saw some people theorizing that the change is rolling out because Discord wants to implement some kind of profile page. pure speculation, but it’ll be interesting to see what they do when the rollout is complete.
on that note, someone I know got the pop-up to change their username about a day before I did, and they weren’t able to choose my username – and when I got the pop-up, it auto-suggested my previous username. so it seems there is a pre-reservation system that does a reasonable job of letting people with already-unique usernames keep those.
I think they definitely could’ve made a profile page while keeping the discriminator around. Something like
discord.com/u/diamondburned/4507.(For various reasons
diamondburned#4507is not too ideal for a URL, but it’s a small difference. Right?)
Discord is heading toward enshittification like Reddit did. Username change is a horrible un-user change that have people mad for a long time now. It just made the best system of username to the worst username system. I recommend revolt.
Damn, I’d never thought of that. It makes much more sense now
