Sure, it's not a physical space, but getting on voice with the gang serves a very similar social purpose compared to hanging out in a mall or at a park. Not gonna say it's the best third space, just saying it is one.

A Facebook Messenger group chat is the third space for my friend circle.

TIHI

That's so fucking sad not as in pathetic but just the lack of intimacy just makes me sad.

Then so is fb, game chat, r*ddit and Lemmy.

It really is the space that me and a handful of friends have met in almost daily for nearly a decade.

Absolutely a third place.

Discord is shit.

discord? the thing with all the pedophiles? no, wait, I think it was the one that was using AI to validate and identify users through a 3rd party that got caught working for the feds. or was it that they had a leak of all the ID data after they promised they wouldn't store any of it.

it's so hard to keep up with all the news these days.

Yeah. It is. I pretty much grew up on IRC myself…

I not against this definition and I definitely think that online spaces have been serving as third spaces for many in the last decades. But I want to point out one problem with this. An important element for third spaces is that they have to be free (or very close to be). Having a computer or similar, electricity and internet might seem small for many, but it’s not achievable for everyone. There is a barrier of entry, and we need to be conscious about it.

In Discord you also have to pay with your lack of privacy and your text and voice is used to train LLMs, so that is another very real cost.

So were malls. At least discord is accessible from home.

Game chat sure, but not the other 3.

Facebook is more of a bulletin board thats gotten overrun with people selling Avon.

Reddit and Lemmy are absolutely not. They're good for discussing niche interests, and being a shitty surrogate for actual socialisation, but I'm not going to meet my friends here.

Shit, my friends and I would meet at a local Starbucks back when Starbucks were inviting.

Eh, depending on the mall, they’re a good place to physically hang out with other people without having to drink or spend money. It’s just that malls in the US are dull and boring. Compare it to malls in Asia and it’s a whole different level.

Can't speak for the US, but many malls in Asia are getting westernised and 'samey' as well.

Malls were really neat when they weren't all clothes and shoes and jewelry. B. Dalton books, KB Toys, World Bazaar, Spencers, arcades.

You say this but I moved away from my friends 8 years ago and we still meet every week to play games together. Something I would not be able to do as easy without discord.

We also meet up a couple of times every year too :)

I think it's something like
First space is home, second is work, third is a place to hang out and meet people, fourth is using first or second space as third space, and fifth space is using the Internet for spaces.

I have a similar story as yours and I also have been using internet to compensate for the geographical difference, but it’s not the same. It’s all right, but nothing beats actually being in the same room together. The lack of physicality impacts us, because we are social animals trained on physical clues.