It also just feels much smaller. Outside of maybe 4chan, none of those classic style forums feel anywhere close to as acitve as their heyday. Like, we're talking maybe 2-3 comments per day.

It definitely doesn't need to be Twitter/Reddit active, but a cozy but empty forum isn't a community so much as a small gathering.

feels like this entire thread is complaining about the prisoners' dilemma. everything wrong with the modern internet can be explained through microeconomics.

or microbiology if you prefer: bacteria (individual agents in a capitalist system) find a new source of food (the internet). the bacteria evolve to optimize their food collection, irrespective of what is "good" for the ecosystem. the food chain shakes up, the predators become apex, and when they've taken too much, they die off in a cycle.

right now we're at the "taking too much" stage. but I don't think anybody is dying off.