Am I the only one who thinks Discord and Notion are unnecessarily difficult to learn?

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Discord and Notion have to be two of the most overcomplicated mainstream apps I've ever used. Everyone keeps saying, "Once you learn it, you'll never go back," but that's exactly the problem. Why should I need to watch a two-hour YouTube tutorial just to figure out the basics? Discord throws servers, channels, categories, threads, roles, permissions, forums, voice channels, and bots at you the moment you join. Notion isn't much better. You open it and get hit with pages, databases, relations, rollups, templates, calendars, and endless customization. It's like both apps expect you to become a system administrator before you can actually use them.

I get that they're powerful, and I understand why businesses, communities, and students love them. But somewhere along the way, they forgot that most people just want to chat with friends or write down a few notes. Not every app needs to be infinitely customizable. Sometimes good software is software you can understand in five minutes without opening Google. Am I the only one who thinks both Discord and Notion sacrificed simplicity in the name of power, or do they genuinely deserve their reputation as great products?

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This is honestly one of the reasons Web3 struggles with mainstream adoption. So many crypto communities live on Discord, and the average person joins only to see dozens of channels, confusing roles, and bots everywhere. If your onboarding feels like solving a puzzle, people will just leave. By the way, why is there no community for crypto? z/crypto? @ifiokambrose 

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Notion has the same issue. It's incredibly powerful, but power users often mistake flexibility for simplicity. Most people just want to write notes, not build an interconnected database. Good defaults matter more than unlimited customization.

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I think Discord and Notion are examples of software optimized for existing users rather than new ones. They're amazing once you learn them, but the learning curve scares away people who might have become long-term users. Better onboarding would solve half the problem.

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