Chat start Discord Inc. has grown in popularity to the increase in revenue and a higher rating, despite the lack of the only thing found on the most successful social networking platforms: advertising. His chief executive says you don’t expect that.
Discord almost tripled its revenue last year, just by selling access to subscriptions to exclusive benefits for users. Instead, the companies behind other free online hangouts – including Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc. – mainly sell targeted ads built around the sharing of users’ personal information.
In an interview, Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron, 36, said the company opposed the advertising model favored by his colleagues because the ads would be too intrusive. People use Discord to have real-time conversations, he said, as opposed to passive reading, making or commenting on posts. He also said that he is of the opinion that, in general, consumers do not like advertisements and do not want their data to be distributed to brands.
“We really believe that we can build products that make Discord more fun and that people will pay for them. It keeps our incentives aligned, ”he said.
For a startup like Discord, trying to make money from ads would be difficult, said AB Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik. “Then compete with the big headlines from Google, Facebook and other social platforms for advertising dollars and it’s not an easy task,” he said. “It’s a heavy lift.”