i started using the internet in the late 2000’s and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post … now its just random websites … if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site:reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter are not crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went…are there still active forums ?
Just to give another perspective, the German part of the internet is still full of extremely niche bulletin board-style forums for every hobby/technology imaginable. Many have millions of posts and have been online for 20+ years. Seems to me like it’s mostly the English-speaking web that’s been affected by these large content aggregators and closed platforms like Discord.
I have noticed that when I search for some specific topics, German websites tend to come up more often. Be it IT or cars, German message boards are well represented (and luckily I can read most of it).
Would that be why there seems to be so much Deutschposting on platforms like Mastodon and Lemmy?
That could very well be. The instances are privately run, have small and personal communities and are often tech-focused so they meet pretty much all the criteria to be popular with Germans lol
I wish I could read/write German.
I prefer the old forums.