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 just really don’t want to go back to not having threaded comment trees. It’s the big reason I left them for Reddit in the first place! But the small forum feel, the sense of community, the primitive/lack of algorithms? Yeah hit me with that shit. I could see a Fediverse platform that does this being workable.
Threaded comment trees make such a huge difference. I’m always reminded of how much I like them when I am scouring auto forums looking for answers to issues on my jeep lol