Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know what Discord is and you also know that it started talks to sell itself with Microsoft back in March for a price of over $10 billion. Considering Microsoft’s track record, many people on the internet weren’t too thrilled by the idea since right now Discord is almost totally free with only niche features locked behind a monthly subscription. Well, the good news is that the talks have ended.
Discord is currently the most popular platform for gaming, content sharing, voice chat and it’s also dabbling in streaming a little. With over 140 million monthly users and thousands of communities dedicated to all kinds of content. The talks with Microsoft sparked a lot of debate. People were worried that after being sold Discord would no longer be a free service as it is right now.
Being sold to Microsoft could have meant added paywalls or made Xbox-only. Anyway, the talks now ended with Discord deciding to stay independent for the time being. According to reports, Discord was in talks with not just Microsoft but with Amazon and Epic Games as well. But Discord has still decided to not sell and even consider a public listing on its path of success.
While Discord is a free service, they still make money. It earned around $130 million in revenue in 2020 but sadly, reports say that even with 140 million users monthly, the platform still isn’t profitable that much. That’s to be expected as the app is basically a platform for content creators to cultivate their following and community.
Discord is still open for renewed talks but will stay independent right now. Which is a good decision in my opinion.
I’d rather they introduce ads than being sold to one of the bigwig companies who are just going to use the app as a cash cow.
