The future of the shoutbox

I realize the Dischord chat is much better in every way but I'm sure some folks would rather just do a shout for somethings, instead of signing into and opening another window for a live-chat. So just to have both options available, I'd say why not. I do like reading and doing a shout sometimes more than a live chat.

But the chat is a shoutbox... I see no difference except it is in another window than the forum window. I'd like to know the difference between a chat when you can peek in and "shout" your YT discovery of the moment and a shoutbox where discussions take place because I don't see any. It's not because you have the app open / set to idle that you necessarily need to have an active discussion. Also you don't need to sign-in into Discord except the first time you use it.

I see your point of having a secondary window for shouts/chat can be bothering but the advantage of the chat surpass that small disadvantage IMO. Frankly there's no point of having both the chat and the shoutbox because most (not all) people did not even bothered opening the chat once or twice and tried to participate. This is exclusively because of the shoutbox I think. I see your point as having a Discord link and keeping the status quo as a way to be able to exclusively use the shoutbox which in this case removing the chat altogether would be a better option for you and maybe others.

Edit: A Discord shoutbox should be possible once Discord release their API. However I dunno how credentials would be handled, if you'd need to login every new browser session or if it would be part of cookies. Right now Discord app remember the credentials.