Many niche communities now are entirely accepting of, and active participants in, knee-jerk feigned outrage and groupthink. I don't think fear of cancel culture

Many niche communities now are entirely accepting of, and active participants in, knee-jerk feigned outrage and groupthink. I don't think fear of cancel culture is a big aspect, since a lot of them actively cheer it on. Remember, the well small places draw from isn't filled by other niche communities and tech people anymore -- it's Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. In the case of places that are not self hosted, like Discord communities, closing off is often a means of survival against a mostly automated moderation system. I've seen several relatively large Discord communities be wiped out by small groups of obsessive and sad people going around and reporting out of context posts until one finally pops the server and gets it deleted.