What is known as servers on Discord also exists on Matrix. They are called spaces and you don’t need to self-host a Matrix server to create a space. There’s also no significant learning curve, you just download Element (the most popular Matrix client), create an account and you ready to go. You can join spaces or groups from any Matrix server or message anyone on the network. Chats also make use of end-to-end encryption by default and it can even be activated for groups (wouldn’t make much sense for public groups though).

it must be doing something right in terms of being sustainable

They’re basically living off of investor money and selling user data. The former is not an indefinite solution though. And Discord Nitro is a fucking joke, the revenue generated from it will never cover the operational costs.

Matrix is a much better solution, it uses peer-to-peer technology (https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p2p-matrix/) to reduce the burden of operational costs on the team. It’s also federated, just like Lemmy, meaning anyone can host their own Matrix server and communicate with users on other servers. Running Matrix at home or on a VPS is even easier than self-hosting Lemmy. It’s also completely free and open-source and allows everyone to write their own clients. Discord on the other side is a piece of proprietary garbage/spyware and bans everyone who attempts to use a custom client. I will never understand why so many people like Discord.

Discord is an absolute piece of garbage, it’s not a good messaging app, definitely not a good place to host a community (seriously, I don’t understand why some communities saw Discord as an alternative after the Reddit API changes), and most importantly, it’s spyware. The company doesn’t have a business model and it was founded by a guy who is notorious for creating random shit that’s not economically sustainable at all. I don’t understand why anyone would use this shit. This video outlines everything that’s wrong with Discord: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uvNkdAggUGU

Switch to Revolt or Matrix

Linux Mint is awesome for beginners.

Nah, Windows always does that on its own. No intervention required.

Windows doesn’t even have a proper terminal lol

It’s one of the reasons I absolutely hate Windows. Nearly every OS uses some form of Unix. Android is Linux, iOS is based on XNU which is FreeBSD, macOS is also XNU, Linux is unix-like, all BSDs are Unix, even the OS used in the PS4 is FreeBSD and thus Unix. Windows is the only thing that’s different.

CCleaner literally sells you privacy as a pro feature, whereas BleachBit puts privacy in the second sentence as a core aspect of the tool.

Exactly

Sounds like you’re left with almost no modern conveniences or technology.

You are right, I forgot one exception. I do use a Google Phone because these have the best support for alternative operating systems. I replaced the Stock Android which is filled with Google spyware with GrapheneOS, an entirely open-source version of Android which makes many privacy and security improvements and gets rid of any Google services. Watch this video to learn more about it: https://piped.smnz.de/watch?v=yTeAFoQnQPo

On my laptops/computers, I exclusively use Linux. I refuse to touch any bloated, ad- and spyware-infested Windows computer. Yes, even at work. As a DevSecOps and Senior Linux engineer, I am free to choose whatever operating system I want. Free and open-source software is the way to go.

I use Firefox (LibreWolf, a better version of Firefox to be percise) with DuckDuckGo as my search engine, I watch YouTube videos through Piped, I use Signal as my messenger, I use Proton for Email, I self-host Nextcloud for my files, contacts, calenders, etc.

For entertainment, I simply pirate the content which gives me much more freedom compared to shitty streaming services like Netflix. That way, I also don’t have to give these shitty corporations any money. I use the open-source Jellyfin media server to consume content from my media library. I do the same thing using Navidrome for my music.

Regarding Social Media, Lemmy is probably the only thing I use. I don’t need Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok.

And the list goes on and on. I could write an entire book about avoiding proprietary software and shitty corporations.

ensure you are truly not using any of these companies or their subsidiaries

I do everything in my control to avoid it. I can’t 100% guarantee it, but that’s also not my goal. Not giving them my money or my data is enough for me.

Or even if a mom and pop shop down the street is using technologies, software, or appliances from one of these companies to run their local business…

Well, that’s out of my control.

I’m suffocating in a wall I guess

Some Tailscale clients are open-source and you can self-host a Headscale server

All of those shitty Big Tech companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and many others, all corporate Social Media platforms (including Reddit of course, fuck Spez), those shitty Hollywood media corporations, CDNs like Cloudflare or Akamai, Tesla and everything related to Elon Musk, Starbucks, basically all fast food chains, every Chinese or Russian company, every Israeli company, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Nestle and many others. I also try to stay away from PayPal, banks and insurance companies as much as possible, they are criminals.

We shouldn’t just focus on shitty companies. Foundations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are basically tax-exempt billionaire investment funds in disguise. This is a great video about the lies of billionaire philanthropy: https://youtube.com/watch?v=OH4uh8cHuto

All of them are beautiful, but I like the middle-left one the most

Njalla and Kyun

Stay away from this garbage. Use BleachBit.

Linux isn’t Unix, it’s Unix-like

Maybe it’s just because I’m fundamentally more of a console user than a windowing-system user, but to me a Unix-based OS is always going to be a winner compared to Windows.

I absolutely agree

But, if you want to laugh at OSes, laugh at classic MacOS

Or some weird old Unixes like AIX

GitLab is mean for large enterprise environments. It’s overkill for most users. Gogs/Gitea/Forgejo focus on simplicity. These are also pretty easy to self-host.

I would donate if they accepted Monero

Well, based Terry absolutely makes me want to move to TempleOS