Forums declined because by 2010, they were competing against professionally maintained messageboards on social networks. Behind almost every PhpBB/vBulletin me

Forums declined because by 2010, they were competing against professionally maintained messageboards on social networks. Behind almost every PhpBB/vBulletin messageboard of yore is a regular non-technical person who had to pay for a server, learn enough about databases, user authentication and backups to get started, and build and moderate a community. Who was going to pick up that torch when you can start a subreddit or Discord or Telegram group with a couple of clicks.