it depends. Its not like every user and question requires a new account. There was a time where these companies had a Reddit group instead Discord. Its the same effort to create an account one time, but then it can be reused. Also there is this login with existing accounts (like Google or other methods), as a secondary option.
If we are speaking about a dedicated forum, that’s another thing. But since I gave up Reddit and because Fediverse is small, I started back creating accounts for forums. But only if really want to be part of it. But yes, agreed this is not convenient and Discord has a plus point here. Also Discord is integrated in other services as well (I think on game consoles, not sure).
I see its pros and cons and why its successful. Also there is no better alternative for what it does. I’m just critical about the negative impact of it. I’m so glad that StackOverflow is not close like Discord.
Thanks for confirmation. After all, Shaders ARE actually shared; which is a good thing. Maybe for certain games its no longer needed to have Shader pre-compilation enabled. Because games does it themselves or maybe because the download of the compiled shaders from Valve (or collected ones) they come to conclusion the pre-compilation option is no longer needed? It’s hard to say if people do not explain their recommendation. It’s also not a straight forward and easy thing to test, so people can easily end up with wrong conclusions.
As for the annoying factor, every update requires pre-compilation (if enabled and only those games that need it off course). And if you have lot of games installed, it can be really annoying too.