In April 2023, I reported that Discord had fixed one of its biggest problems: Increase the free upload limit for file sizes on servers. It had been a pathetic 8MB for years for non-paying users, but that was raised to 25MB. Good news, right?
It was really a sign that the extremely popular text and video chat social media site had finally been paying attention to the vast majority of users and their needs. Sadly, it has recently been paying attention again and not in a positive way.
He Official Discord Support Page The article detailing how Nitro Basic and Nitro (the site’s two paid subscription tiers) work also includes a brand new clause explaining that Discord has reduced the upload limit from its juicy new 25MB to 10MB. According to the support page, “storage management is expensive” and “in order to maintain our service without compromising storage quality, we decided to reduce the free file size upload limit.”
Apparently, Discord analyzed how much storage non-paying users actually use and found that “99% of users” tend to upload files under 10 MB. As such, it decided to lower the storage limit to that amount. Of course, we have to take Discord’s word for it since it didn’t publish the results of this study, but the reason for this change seems reasonable at first glance.
Storage is quite expensive, and even more so for a site as heavily used as Discord. Plus, once you upload a file, it stays on the server permanently unless you or someone else with the proper permissions deletes it. Discord, after analyzing its operating costs and the average usage of the site by its users, came to the logical conclusion that what is sustainable for the site is nothing particularly remarkable.
So why did Discord do it?
On the other hand, if the vast majority of users don't use more than 10 MB of storage, why is it so profitable to reduce the upload limit? Is that 1% of users so high that, in just over a year, Discord is already closing down?
Then there's the fact that if Discord was able to review this user data now, it would have had to have already studied such data beforehand, which begs the question of why it didn't foresee that the costs would be “too high” for it to afford?
Finally, when discussing this topic, it is crucial to mention Discord's value. Since Discord remains a private company, it is not required by US law to report its finances.
However, there are Estimates of his net worthwith a peak value of $14.5 billion in 2021 and the most current estimate of $8 billion today. Still, this company is worth quite a bit of money, which makes the statement that “storage management is expensive” a little odd.
How does it affect you?
The vast majority of users will likely not be affected by this storage limit reduction, as while file sizes have increased dramatically over the years, it's still rare to find a file that approaches 25 MB. On the other hand, for the same reason, it doesn't seem worth changing this policy back to 10 MB if the number of users uploading large files is really that small.
It seems like Discord is creating unnecessary discord by removing such a popular update worldwide. Hiding it on the support page without properly informing users about such a major change (since their official account X never informed about it) is also not a great idea.
It's so big that I've seen Discord users even theorize that they would soon reduce Nitro's upload limit from 500MB to 250MB. While there's of course no evidence of this happening, it does indicate the level of distrust this decision is already generating among those who have been using the site for years.
On top of other recent negative news like updated Terms of Service adding a forced arbitration clause, laying off 17% of its workforce, and changes to its AI policy, it had to backtrack, and it’s more than understandable why this would be a thought process.
Discord seriously needs to rethink its PR strategy when it comes to decision-making policies. It’s an incredibly popular site used by millions of people, and it would be devastating to the gaming community to lose such a vital resource if enough people began to distrust it enough to affect user base numbers. And it’s not impossible, either.
After all, Skype was once synonymous with text, voice and video chat.
