Matrix still has issues with rooms. There are a couple I’ve been in where the room breaks somehow and I have to join another one. The server is also a pain to run last I knew, and somehow, despite all the interest in it, nothing ever manages to rival the standard client and server.
I’d rather see Mov.im on XMPP get more usage once they finish implementing their more Discord-like features. They want to become an alternative since the age verification drama a few months ago, but it takes time to build the features. I’m hoping that becomes viable real soon.
Still, what I’d REALLY like for technical communities is for them to just use forums so the information can be archived in a searchable way. Discord is where information goes to die slowly, and an XMPP-based alternative wouldn’t be much better.
People like the immediacy of live chat, which forums can’t really replicate, and Discord provides voice chat. For certain things, I can’t deny Discord is a more convenient format, so I see how it attracted people. Another big thing is it’s totally free. Your tiny pet project with no funding or your tiny group of friends can have their own personal community at no cost. It’s not terribly surprising to me that it gained so much ground. If someone was willing to hand out free, full featured communities on a different platform, they might be able to rival Discord, but Discord only offered it under promise of later enshittification, so I don’t really expect anyone to step up like that.