this is an interesting question i’ve had banging around in my mind since well before Reddit’s implosion (and Discord’s enshittification), but which seems really worth asking now.
you can’t blame Reddit and Discord or their imitators entirely for these going out of style, but they’ve sure put the dagger in a lot of remaining ones, and i kind of wonder if they’re just in an irreversible and terminal decline a la USENET. i can only name two or three i even consider checking anymore, and i’m not sure how sustainable any of those are long-term.
I’m an old-timer who got on the internet in the mid '80s, so I spent a lot of time on usenet. I often miss those days. Usenet was anarchic, but it wasn’t subject to the vicissitudes of capitalism. It couldn’t be controlled. It was designed to survive nuclear war. We need something like that again.
a : a favorable or unfavorable event or situation that occurs by chance : a fluctuation of state or condition the vicissitudes of daily life b : a difficulty or hardship attendant on a way of life, a career, or a course of action and usually beyond one’s control
TIL!
I remember sending a nasty reply to the green card spam posting, and thinking “Well, THAT’s fixed.”. Ha ha. Sigh.