Internet forums are dead now, aint it?

It's a nice debate here. I am a forum's advocate so my opinion may be biased still here are some points I consider relevant:

- Forums took a big hit when Facebook groups appeared, however, now most of the Fb groups I participate in are filled with selling SPAM or dead (the notifications from groups are not getting less importance)
- There are still several big forums that get plenty of traffic if they are getting advertised (take BHW and DP for instance). A forum is not a business you can run on autopilot
- Also, there are niches where anonymity is important (quit smoking, quit drinking, sexual fantasies etc) and forums in this niches are growing well
- Forums should not fight social networks but rather leverage them (create a Fb page and a group and then drive users to the forum)
- If anyone considers starting a forum should do it in a niche that is new and there are not many competitors (think cryptocurrency 2 years ago, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality etc)

 

Majority of forums are pretty much dead. Most forums nowadays that are really active are on video games.

 

People got many other online activities to spend time compared to 5-10 years ago. But forums still make a fundamental role. Specially those directed to a specific niche.

 

I think a forum is dead when the marketplace and general chat are the sections receiving the most posts. As mentioned already, active forums serve as a community. It is hard to manage forums however. I was a moderator on a forum that went down - it was disheartening. Let alone losing all those backlinks I accumulated. I felt betrayed/let down by the forum - even though that's just life.

 

It`s because we have so much alternatives now

 

People right now are very active on social media platforms these days, but I still find forums a good source for seeking advice from other people.

 

I think it`s a great place to start, to get some new skills and to be a part of the cool community

 

@NicoleW as you illustrate, a forum is what you make of it. Some believe that forums are in the ICU on a ventilator, right now. Others, find ways to still get value from them.

 

I tried to consider as a software developer how it could be a medium that blends the ease of Discord with the more in-depth discussions allowed by forums, but I refused to accept that forums are gone and they will never return too soon, so I began to abandon several of the broad interest-based chat groups I entered in 2016-2018 trying to find the camaraderie of forums again.

 

I can`t say because on forums it`s a close community.

 

surprise no body mention Reddit?

 

Exactly.

But now I'm trying to do something old-school. Registering a forum account is the first one.

 

I think the interaction on forums are better compared to threads on facebook groups. I hope this forum gets busy again! as this was one of the best forums to learn and meet new people in IM before

 

Forums are still useful nowadays. Some are active but sadly, a few are already dead. Most people prefer to use a faster way to exchange ideas so they get into social media. That is brought by technological change.

But still forums are helpful even if change is the only constant thing.

 

Forums are great of searchable content and support. I personally wouldn't start a forum in 2020, i would use reddit community, even discord is very popular now for chat base.

 

Ironically, I came across this thread on Google while looking up people's rants about how they believe web forums are dead. And I have to agree, sadly.

Once 2023 is up, I'm going to be done with forums for good. I have unfortunately noticed that they have dipped in activity apart from NeoGAF (where some tosser banned me ages ago), making being a contributor feel rather pointless, to be honest.

It feels like I'm talking to myself most of the time these days. Because I posted a lot of threads on this site and several other forums recently, but now I find that the lack of activity is so very low, that it's actually ended up feeling like a bigger waste of time than ever before. Now I feel like I'd rather just watch movies, or play a game if I can be bothered.

 

Even though some old friends rarely show up. I occasionally look at the forum perhaps there are new ideas and insights, and even hope that there will be more business here like the forum's heyday some years ago.
Those who have new knowledge and new business share here
automatically forum back to life.

 

Well, I cannot speak for this forum, but all the major gaming forums I know of are worthless today. The only really actives ones are NeoGAF and GameFAQs. It's just a pity the people in charge on NeoGAF are too cutthroat with their bannings, because I didn't think it was too bad there.

However, while GameFAQs is frequented by more members, and is therefore full of activity, the poor moderation allows for flaming to go on there. As a result of this sort of nonsense, I closed several accounts because myself and other users would end up being mocked, or the threads would be derailed. Or they would accuse newbies of having multiple aliases. There just isn't enough nice people lurking on that site, so I stopped going there.

I was posting on JoyFreak and several others. I do sometimes receive a response. But JoyFreak has too many bots, and it's used more like a news article site, to be honest. So it's the same situation where the lack of activity just made me throw in the towel.

A lot of people gathered a long time ago that message boards are dead, apart from Reddit and Quora, so they likely just stick to using Discord, X and YouTube nowadays.

 

I think forums are no longer as relevant as they used to be.

 

Forums can be reanimated.