Itβs not, actually. Itβs terrible.
Those βrandom numbersβ allow multiple people to use similar/the same usernames with a differentiator at the end, so you can be bob#1212 instead of having to be bob12121212, which makes it possible for your friends to easily @bob. Without the #1234, you end up with the βfirstnamebunchofnumbersβ phenomenon, which is truly annoying. Where before it would just assign you four numbers, now you have to either guess a unique differentiator which is more difficult to remember, or come up with another name.
Those random numbers also mean that itβs hard for people to find you and harass you with DM requests/friend requests/unsolicited DMs. That may not be a problem for you, but Iβm sure not looking forward to some of the random assholes on the internet who love to bother me trying to find me when thereβs no longer a #9756 (not my differentiator, lol) at the end of my Discord login.
Sure, I could pick a different username on Discord from everywhere else Iβve ever been on the internet for the past 25 years, but why should I have to do that in order to not be harassed, when the present system already protects me from random harassment? Itβs a change with no upside for me and lots of downsides.
Likewise, thereβs an issue of impersonators, because getting your new username is βfirst come, first serve.β Iβm sure there will be no problems with impersonation or blocking someone from taking the username theyβve used everywhere, or people impersonating others for the purposes of harassment and defamation!
Anytime a black market opportunity opens up, spam and abuse skyrocket. I will bet you money right now that once this change goes through, youβre going to see a huge increase in phishing, spam, etc. so that scammers can get hold of 'desirableβ usernames and then either sell them back to the people they stole them from, or sell them to others. Why do I think thatβll happen? Because it already happens everywhere else:
Sonderman targeted at least five people across the country, demanding they give up their social media handles, according to an indictment. Herring was the only victim who died.
If the person surrendered the handle, Sonderman would then put it up for sale on internet forums, the indictment stated. If they refused, Sonderman and his co-conspirator would βbombard the owner with repeated phone calls and text messagesβ and harass them in an attempt to get them to change their mind, according to the indictment.
Did you know that a lot of people were paying for Nitro specifically so they could have custom number discriminators, so once thatβs gone, there will be no reason for a lot of those people to continue to pay for Nitro, so in terms of money, Discord is shooting themselves in the foot again. They think theyβre going to be able to present Discord as a social media site rather than a messaging service, andβ¦ likeβ¦ none of the users actually want that, because thatβs not what Discord is to them.
Last (well, last of the things I feel like writing about, but actually not last of the reasons this is an ill-advised idea) but not least, this actually reduces the systemβs capacity for unique and understandable usernames! It used to be that you could have bob#0001-9999, and then bob1#0001-9999, but now you only have bob, bob1, bob2. That doesnβt even take into account that theyβre doing away with capital letters, so where before you had bob#0001-9999 AND Bob#0001-9999, now you only have bob, bob1, bob2, etc. Theyβve actually reduced their capacity for unique usernames, which seems weird in terms of creating opportunity for growth.
Another thing that seems to be quite interesting; users who will soonest have access to this feature (still primarily Discord staff, partners, affiliates, etc) are operating on a reservation basis β claiming their username, so that it canβt be taken by another high-priority user. Thing is, there are some well-known personalities, in addition to production studios, business groups, etc. that are unable to access their own names because, turns out, someone beat them to the punch. Public statements from indie title, Rust Lakeβs team, reads, βA warning for all the indie devs waiting to claim their own username, we just received an email that we, as Verified Owners, could finally submit a new username and wowβ¦ βrustylakeβ is already taken!β In addition, several partners have discovered names like βmarkiplierβ (a well-known YouTube content creator and online personality) were not reserved early, and now, the affected individual(s) will not have access to their identifying name on this platform.
Anyway, Iβm checking out new chat platforms because this is about to be a whole fucking mess.