Why I still use Discord

Recently I found out the Yesterweb Discord server was closing down.. I was absolutely shocked to find out out especially after it was suggested to me as a replacement for another community I was part of. Now at first I did not have much thought towards this at first until one thing hit me: I use Discord more than any other platform, or at least it is the one I use most. This is sort of sorted in a Q&A style post however the questions are hypothetical but could be asked to me.

A bit of backstory

Now I was a kid born in the 2000s however I am old enough to remember using forums. Forums existed before Discord and hell, Discord didn't even exist when I was a little kid. The one forum I mainly visted were the Plazma Burst 2 fourms. Sadly all my old posts are gone because of some weird bug with the forums that made it I couldn't even load the forums. Social media did not take over my life as I was too young to have accounts on Facebook or Twitter until later so I either used that one fourm or talked in online games. It wasn't until 2017 that the Plazma Burst community made a server called well, Plazma Burst Community (or knwon as PBC). The server was made on June 26, 2017 with the creation of my Discord account coming 3 days after. My account was also made way before Discord began to crackdown on underaged users. At first this place seemed like the best thing in the world but when I look back, I realise how much of a idiot I was, but I was a minor. I believe months later I was banned becuase people kept whiteknighting but by that time I was in other servers. I ended up making my own in 2018 with a group of people I had met. Teleport many years into the future such as 2023 and I am in several servers, my server is dead and many updates have happened to Discord. I realised Discord is not all fine and dandy as it claims to be.

If Discord isn't all fine and dandy why use it?

You see, the main reason why I use it is because I can't just leave it. There are several other reasons such as:

My friends still use Discord: Although my friends list is small (only 21) a lot of them are more social media focused. Social media is great and all but at the same time it is bad for me with the toxicity that comes along with it that I just can't escape. Along with them being more social media focused only one of them has actially stopped using Discord so they have the benefit of being able to leave unlike me. The rest don't seem to wanna leave discord and see the other platforms I use (Matrix, Mastodon, etc) as niche, "hipster platforms (damn it feels good to be a hipster)" or something else. To me, I see that other people think these smaller places are not so good and can't be good as the big guys. Leaving would mean I have to cut off many people I talk to in servers too.
Some communities won't leave Discord for other platforms: When Discord began to become mainstream I was several years into being a user. Everyone used to have their own place but now they all run to Discord because it is the hot new thing. Why should I have to join a freaking Discord server just to get support on a program or something else? I have seen this with one thing and even though it is not a problem for me it is for users who do not like Discord.
History will be lost for me: Now I could archive ever server I am in but that would take too long, let alone some servers have a lot of messages!
Stupid Discord addiction: I must admit I hate having this "addiction". It's not good at all. One server I used to be part of largely contributed to it and I didn't even realise until I look back at the messages with the server owner who thought I was getting addicted to their server. I brushed it off as them trying to expel me from their server... but I was a stupid teenager and they were right.
You feel like you are screaming into a void: If you look in the discover section in Discord big places like Genshin Impact, Midjourney, OpenAI have over million members and who can keep up with that many people, let alone talk in a server that has a rapid chat that your messages get lost so easily? When Discord servers get so large the moderation team can't keep up with them and the servers might feel impersonal. It doesn't feel like a close community when the server is that large and has so many active members that people start having to ration the attention they give. I used to be used to large servers but it slowly became too much to manage as I just can't keep up with it.

Can't you convince people to join the other places you are at?

Well, no, not really. At first I did not like such things such as Matrix because one person made it look bad to me. They said it was a hipster platform at first but when I started using Matrix it wasn't so bad after all. It may have some limitations comapred to Discord but I got used to it. Let alone they made it seem like FOSS is all this bad stuff although going completely FOSS isn't so easy. I'm using good software I didn't have to pay a dime for... oh the humanity! The only annoying thing about Matrix and Element is the fact it freaks out with encryption when I go on another phone. If you like Discord that much then stay on your platform which has inconsistent stuff. What is the inconsistent stuff you ask?

The server region selector is always light themed.
The download apps screen is always light themed.
The add server dialogue is always light themed.
Ghost pings! FREAKING GHOST PINGS! If you ping someone then delete it they still get mentioned regardless.
Having to use a modifed client for stuff. Why is it that if I want a vaporwave theme I have to modify the client which is against TOS? Or even add useful stuff to help a user's experience.
The report function is useless. I tried to report a user who told me to kill myself in the most complex way and despite reporting it, not much happened. They are still on Discord. This may be a small thing and not a big thing but it is just a annoying thing to me.
Deleting your account does nothing at all! I realised this a while ago in 2022 when I planned on making a new Discord account. If you are someone who doesn't clear their server lists or has a group chat with a deleted user, their account really isn't gone. If you can find their account as something like Deleted User XXXXXX you can still friend them, let alone acess their DMs. Why should this even be allowed? One could argue it is so they can look it back up for something like a police investigation but I can still see old DMs with people who deleted their acocunt. The data is never really gone. You could use a script the remove the messages but that would set off the automatic detection systems. if you already deleted your account you are screwed since you can't remove your account.
Phone numbers. Now this has never personally happened to me but it seems Discord gets shitty if you don't provide a phone number. A friend tried to make a new account to stop using their old one but a few days later she was locked out of her account because she did not have a phone number. Why do you want my phone number? Discord claims it is for "verification" but never have I once got a code sent to my phone when I logged in, it just make me check my emails.

Why do you use a custom client?

I use one because it is useful for me. I used to use Powercord as a custom client was suggested to me but with Powercord reaching EOL I use Replugged. Since Replugged is being rewritten I sue OpenAsar. Some of the plugins I used were custom user tags