>But why did forums die? Was it bad UX? [...] , and what we've learned not to do from the last 20 years of forums and social networks. I'm old enough to have e

>But why did forums die? Was it bad UX? [...] , and what we've learned not to do from the last 20 years of forums and social networks. I'm old enough to have experienced various UI paradigms of computer communications over the decades. I ran dial-up BBS forum, paid a subscription to dial-up CompuServe forums, used USENET forums (both in dial-up eventually broadband), participated in a bunch of old web forums such as vBulletin/phpBB, and now Reddit/HN. Some observations... One issue is that using different URLs as the "discrete unit of navigation" for each topic is very high-friction -- especially on mobile phones and tablets using thumbs to type in URL or the more cumbersome touchscreen copy&paste. Yes, browser bookmarks can help but that doesn't remove friction of navigating to new websites. It's easier to instantly go from "reddit.com/r/worldnews" to "reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive" and to any other "reddit.com/r/<ANYTOPIC>" ... rather than a hypothetical different urls "www.worldnews.com" to "www.explainlikeimfive.com". Going to a different website would involve a different web UI and possibly require a new login signup. So sites like reddit or Facebook groups aggregate a bunch of topics for super easy navigation. Especially ergonomic for easy one-handed thumb swiping on smartphones. Arguably, a RSS reader software would also "aggregate" content to somewhat mimic Reddit to lessen the high-friction of navigating to different URLs. However, RSS is one-way "read-only" and not a standard way to participate and write comments on each website URL. And no, each website discussion forum setting up OpenID to re-use login credentials still doesn't lower friction enough compared to Reddit. E.g. Back in 1980s, I learned a lot of C Language programming tips from USENET "comp.lang.c". But these days when I want to see some recent discussions on C++, I just visit "reddit.com/r/cpp". As another example, I was researching air conditioning units and I found some discussions were in a phpBB web forum dedicated to HVAC. I really really didn't want to signup with a new login just to ask a question. The UI friction was too high. Yeah, I lived with slow 300 baud dial-up but I'm lazy now. I want instant gratification.