Comment by rob_c | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rob_c | Hacker News Reader

I can point to several communities which unfortunately died after they tried to mistakenly expand and embrace a wider audience.

Small forums worked because a lot of people soaked up the cost of running a little web page on a box that wasn't very expensive per year. A lot of them eventually, decided they didn't want to spend the money or time and hand off to a new maintainer.

The new maintainer looks to (reasonably) expand the community and embrace new technologies, e.g. live chat, video. This creates 10x the work at least and eventually they give up and pack it in.

Now, unfortunately the work to take over the community on it's current state is much larger than the original site and so it eventually dies without someone wanting to work a full time job without the pay...

I miss the optimistic lose communities of the 90s when I was growing up. Not to mention the communities on topics which are now no longer of interest to a wide audience. The amount of organic search needed to rediscover any new forums now is also unfortunately a new barrier to entry there never used to be :(

> I miss the optimistic lose communities of the 90s

You're just a product of your time - like me and everyone else

The 2010s have been dark. It's easy to see in mass media, which is a reflection of people self perceptions and interest: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheNewTens

>> For the first time in over 70 or 80 years, the political and economic climate has impacted the socio-cultural in an inescapable fashionnote , becoming more watered-down and risk-averse compared to the "alternative" trends of the late 90s and 2000s,

>> On the one hand, the early years of the decade were marked by escapist fare, such as Glee, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, young adult-geared romantic dramas and "shiny reboots". However, sordid settings and cynical attitudes thrived in media, reflecting the turbulent sign of the times. Dystopian fiction (The Hunger Games, The Last of Us, Divergent) and horror films (The Purge) served as allegories for the growing social and economic divisions in American society. Dark cable dramas (Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad) took away the spotlight from broadcast network shows, and several franchises got acclaimed grim-and-gritty interpretations in the vein of The Dark Knight Trilogy.

No. I miss the communities and simple forums which have died typically for the reasons stated above.

I don't think this is "I remember the sky was brighter" or any other common misunderstandings. I follow some simple forums still and am aware yes, they are technically inferior and have issues and even getting https on some sites is effort due to the internet having evolved around old code.

Some do evolve and adapt, and saying "I prefer the way they were" would be closer to what you think I'm saying. The communities I miss have gone. There is no subreddit covering the same topics afaik and as such that probably means I should reach out and start to find these communities myself, but I miss the old forum interactions, hence why I follow other forums.

There are a few still out there who have survived the purge, but only because the people/person behind it have invested personal time/effort/money over the year out of their personal commitment

Gated Private Internets can probably flourish. Stuff like Urbit chatrooms.

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