New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Where have all the forums gone?

Ask HN: Where have all the forums gone?
13 by legrande | 7 comments on Hacker News.
It used to be everyone had their own phpBB or vBulletin forum for discussion on niche topics and it was a sort of proto-social-media where you had the ability to 'like' or 'star' posts, build up friends and followers, etc. All tools which are now the staple of social media. But lately I've noticed a lack of these forums in search results. It used to be in the good ol' days you would search for a topic and some forum would discuss it at length, with hundreds of comments, and then the topic got locked as the issue was resolved. I still see forums in search results, but they're mostly old-timer forums which have sufficient funding and a credible userbase, and are staying regardless. Did social media absorb these forums? Did messenger apps absorb them? Did Discord absorb them? Did Reddit absorb them? Where's have all the forums gone?

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