Discord won many people over simply because it was such well written software, and that continues today.
Its proprietary nature has always concerned me too, as well as what they're doing with the data (i.e. assume they're reading & listening to everything).
What they mustn't do is forget how quickly they grew and the underlying concept that enabled it: people will flock to different messaging platforms quite easily (Teamspeak to Discord is a great example) which means Discord can lose just as quickly as it won.
I think the biggest reason is/was because it is free (Costs no Money). Not because it is/was well written.
Nobody cares if it is well written... (at least outside the hn spectrum)
Everyone cares it was well written, otherwise people would be using Skype, which is also Cost Free (sans some features) or one of the P2P chat apps (bitmessage), but nobody is doing that.
Its proprietary nature has always concerned me too, as well as what they're doing with the data (i.e. assume they're reading & listening to everything).
What they mustn't do is forget how quickly they grew and the underlying concept that enabled it: people will flock to different messaging platforms quite easily (Teamspeak to Discord is a great example) which means Discord can lose just as quickly as it won.