For an advocate for maintaining ones own 'sovereignty' by relying less on centralised services I think forums have been assimilated by modern social media (Facebook Groups, subreddits) and crude attempts by IM apps to emulate forum threads (Discord, Slack).
Fondly remember when those ad-filled 'free forum hosts' were shunned by anyone serious who would get a domain and private server instead. In some ways it feels like we are potentially back at the same situation but in reverse.
Considering traditional forum software like phpBB, vbulletin and similar largely look and work the same as they did 15 years ago not hard to see why some change is desired particularly with accessibility by mobile-users.
Fondly remember when those ad-filled 'free forum hosts' were shunned by anyone serious who would get a domain and private server instead. In some ways it feels like we are potentially back at the same situation but in reverse.
Considering traditional forum software like phpBB, vbulletin and similar largely look and work the same as they did 15 years ago not hard to see why some change is desired particularly with accessibility by mobile-users.