#corporatification

The CEO just sat there behind her desk, legs crossed as her eyes locked directly with my own keeping my attention from escaping her.

“You ask why we do it? We lived through an era where virtue was dead, people flaunted their Nouveau riche status and rubbed it in the faces of the poor. Embracing your worst self was considered a status symbol. Everyone wanted to think they were an expert in everything, the all knowing man so he doesn't need to listen to fields that he knows nothing of. Leaders were elected because they are cool, funny or loud enough and we all went a little backwards for it each time. Humanity was viewed as unfit to have absolute freedom, they had to be fixed, improved, disciplined by their betters and forced to once again work for the collective good..”

While listening, lost in her words I failed to noticed she was now in front of me, her hand holding my chain up, face inches away as her eyes drowning my vision.

No longer green, they had transformed into an deep blue.

“People need to learn to behave, to conform to authority figures, to work for the good of the greater body, the society. We shall restore virtue to humanity, you will be freed from your hate, from poverty, from sorrow, you will be housed, you will have a purpose, you will want for nothing.” She creased her cheek with her cold hand.

It sounded so nice, so good to just surrender my freedom to my betters.

Lillian circled behind me as she wrapped her arms around me like I was one of her belongings.

When you've been on the internet for long enough, you start to be able to sense when something is about to die.

Apps, websites, they all have their heyday. They have their moment in the sun. They get popular, people love them, and everyone has a good time.

But then someone gets greedy. The investors want more money. Maybe the thing got too popular too fast and they need money for server space. Well, for whatever reason, they sell out. Doesn't matter to who. They start running ads. Doing partnerships. Adding in nods to popular media like movies and TV shows. They try to do it in ways that are "engaging," but people know when they're being advertised to and they don't like it. So it never works.

Now, you've probably been reading this and thinking of any of a million different things, but right now I'm talking about discord. Discord is doomed. This is the end. It's not going to survive until 2028, at least, not in its current form. I have my doubts that it even makes it to 2027.

First it was the quests and the partnerships and we all grinned and bore it. But if you've been on the internet for a while, you know that that's always how it begins. And now comes the selling out. And, a new addition in the 2020s, the AI and the age verification.

The chief argument against this used to be that there wasn't an alternative, but now there is. Fluxer, a nearly identical app without the corporate downsides, with a plan to sustain itself for the long-term that doesn't involve selling out its userbase. It'll start slow, but get popular, as discord's popularity wanes. On the internet, all things are cyclical. All things have their place in the cycle, and discord's is coming to an end.

Discord's managed to delay its doom (a rare feat), by holding back on the age verification for now, but they're going to do it eventually. Maybe they'll run out of reserve cash and get desperate. Maybe it'll be something else. But age verification, when it hits, will be the final nail in the coffin for an already dying app with a rapidly dwindling userbase. A company increasingly desperate for money reaches out to a userbase that is increasingly less willing to give it, and then collapses. A story as old as the internet, as old as time.

Nitro subscriptions have been cancelled, people have been leaving, slowly at first (it always starts slowly, as the first few people sense it and pack their bags and go), but it'll get faster. More rapid. Eventually the exodus will reach a fever-pitch as everyone realizes that the time to go is now. But they will figure it out. And they will go. And discord will die. As has every popular thing before it. As they will after. Everything has an end, and the internet is no exception. The pendulum swings again.

If it does survive, it won't be the same as it was before. People will find other sites, ones that don't ask them for sensitive information. The internet will build itself new forums based on the wants and needs of the users. Only the truly desperate or lazy will stay, and discord as you know it will be dead.

The funeral bells are ringing. There's a hamster dressed as the grim reaper standing ominously in the background. The death knell has sounded.

Go read my Hypnokink story

If you enjoy some nsfw themes like generification, brainwashing, corporatification, gaslighting and the severance of the spark of humanity in the name of the greater good then go check Reigniting ambition out, so far two chapters are published.