An Open Letter to Discord

I have been using a Discord server for years, going back to well before the pandemic. I have been using the camera background feature on the average of twice a week for over a year, with the last time it worked having been the evening of 31 July 2026.

Camera background failed the first time I tried it on August 7th of this year. I put in a service support request (67574519) the following day. After a bit of discussion with Nelly, who was helpful, the ticket went on to higher support.

This began the worst customer service experience I have ever had.

First I got Fernanda (sometimes Ferdinand J; code names are fine for privacy, but you should be consistent), who had clearly not read the ticket as they told me how to turn the feature on, rather than address that it was not working.  

Then I got Izaro, who determined that it was a hardware issue, despite the feature running without issue on the same hardware for years and similar features in other programs (such as Teams) running without issue. Izaro demonstrated an unwavering faith that it was the hardware, and wouldn’t respond to any evidence to the contrary.

The feature was working up to 31 July 2026, and I was using it twice weekly without issue. I did not subscribe to premium Nitro because the feature was not working. On the contrary, I subscribed because it was working well and I was happy with it. I am not subscribed any longer.

Any response that claims the feature cannot run on the existing hardware - unless Discord requirements changed - is a non-starter. Because I have at least two data points per week over years showing that the hardware is not the issue.

That the feature ran for years is part of the ticket. That it ran the Friday before I made the ticket (which is July 31st) is part of the ticket. It really seems like they have not read the ticket, and cannot be bothered to take the ticket seriously.

I am therefore looking at alternatives to migrate my games to. I am making this public in the hopes that either they will actually try to fix the issue, or that someone else will not make the mistake of paying for features that, if they stop working, Discord support cannot be bothered to take seriously.