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I really do hate what reddit has turned into. Some people say it's "dead internet theory," with the site getting ruined by bots. I say I wish they were bots, but I'm afraid that it's actually a humans who have been turned into something worse than bots. I feel like I'm actively losing brain cells every time I look at reddit. And yet I still find myself going there, out of habit or because google leads me there or because there's just nothing else left for large active text-based discussion forums.
To be fair, it might not be the fault of reddit itself, but a larger problem with the entire internet. There used to be so many independant websites and discussion forums. That meant a lot less pressure on any one site in particular. You could self-host a small, niche site with minimal features and weak security, and it would still limp along and be fine because it was part of a large ecosystem where everyone was using such sites. Now, it seems like every site has to either evolve into a large corporate walled garden, or die off entirely, either from complete lack of traffic or because it gets hacked and only used by bots or scammers.
I wonder if you (or, not literally you, but someone with a lot of resources) could attack this in a more indirect way? Part of the reason that small independant forums flourished in the 2000s was that there was so many free, easy tools for people to make and host their own websites. Nowadays those free sites are usually seen as not good enough to be exposed to the open internet, at least not without a lot of effort and customization, so people just default to using reddit/substack/youtube/whatever. But if you could create a tool that would allow someone to quickly and easily spin up their own custom site that is (a) open to the internet (b) easily discoverable on google and other algorithmic search engines (c) secure) (d) easy for new users to sign in and comment on (e) for the site owner to customize and monetize... then perhaps we'd see a resurgence in people creating actual, independant websites. And then you'd have less of the "responsibility without authority" problem of sites like reddit, where the mods that do the work are still stuck beholden to bland corporate policies and random anonymous idiots. We'd get all the advantages of real, private property instead of people just squatting on public land while park patrols try and fail to run things. And like you said, we might be getting close (or maybe even already there?) with vibe-coding tools where anyone can be like "make me a website focused on my incredibly niche interest, which looks like an old myspace page, but with great SEO and modern security."
Y'know, in some ways this isn't that big of a departure from what I'm already planning. All it requires is that the person be able to attach their own web domain to the submotte instead of just running it through our main domain. That's doable.
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IIRC, Usenet still exists.
Like all programming languages are just poor versions of Lisp, all forums are just poor versions of NNTP.
And that's a good thing?
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On this point, I don't think the main issue is about the tools or how easy they are to set up. There are too many academics running Discourse forum in default skin for it to be difficult to set up. I find the technical problem is twofold: Discourse and similar tools that have modern mobile-first look and feel tench have bad UX for serious discussion, but battle-tested forum software with good forum-discussion features looks old and is not mobile-friendly (if it has security patches). I suspect there may be root cause which is related to the mobile form factor vs typewriter form factor of the previous personal computing generation.
Anyway, I think you are on the right track on two important points. Reddit is worse because Reddit is people, not bots, and something important went missing when privately owned space of blogs and forums died. I'd just put social and network effects as the first primary reason. A social media monolith likes Facebook or Reddit or Discord won because literally everyone would be on their Discussion As A Service platform. Eventually every prospective forum admin who wishes to set up a niche discussion forum would be foolish not set their forum up in the most popular DAAS, as they can trust not only there will be enough people to populate it but all the relevant people are there. But because everyone is there, not just the people who the admin wants, another problem presented itself. Consequently, observe rise of the anti-FB, Discord ( discussion spaces are invite-only, and easier it is to find a discussion place, higher the chances that it is spiritually dead in bland noise of cacophony).
A second thought. I have an impression that many people who would have had inclination to participate in internet discussion for fun in the '00s or '10s have less time to do it. Either absolutely less time, because they are busy with jobs or other internet services, or relatively, because content by hobbyist will always be outcompeted by people who produce similar content professionally, full-time, for living. Exhibit A, see the modal career path of Youtube streamer you have heard about. One hears about streamers usually after they go pro for a reason. Exhibit B, see Substack. Why write posts for free if you are good enough writer to monetize on it?
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