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I'm not really convinced that discovery was a problem with the old forums. There was no insatiable need to know where everything under the sun lives. You'd typi
by sakopov 3y ago
I'm not really convinced that discovery was a problem with the old forums. There was no insatiable need to know where everything under the sun lives. You'd typically just follow a few forums around your interests. I think it became a glaring disadvantage when Reddit introduced an overabundance of options and allowed everyone to subscribe to 20 things because they could, not because they needed or wanted to. I think Reddit's value-add was community moderation without self-hosting.
This is akin to online dating. Nobody needed 5 dates a week 20 years ago and because it's an option now doesn't mean it was a problem than. Optionality is just a byproduct of social platforms.
- chongli 3y agoI'm not really convinced that discovery was a problem with the old forums If you're referring to the time when the "old forums" were new, that is a world which no longer exists: a world where Google search results were useful and not overloaded with paywalled sites and SEO spam. Today, you're going to have a very difficult time finding those "old forums" unless you know the exact name of what you're looking for. And forget about browsing. As for "people today have too many options, back in the day we had fewer options and we were fine!" that's a very old argument you'll have a hard time convincing many people of.
- fatfox 3y agoAs with any community, the single biggest issue for independent forums was reaching a critical mass of users that kept conversation flowing.