Lack of global discoverability. On Reddit, if you have an interest and you search for some keyword related to that interest then you will likely find a sub rela

Lack of global discoverability. On Reddit, if you have an interest and you search for some keyword related to that interest then you will likely find a sub related to it. On transitional forums, you'd have to use Google. And your ability to find a community would be directly impacted by the owners skill at SEO unless you're constructing rather advanced queries. There was also a poor UX compared to social media. Site owner doesn't pay the monthly hosting fee from their web host? Site is down. Can't really admin a MySQL DB? Site is frequently down when it grows past some point. Shitty web host? Site is slow (or down). Reddit solves this by being centrally managed.