Now, if only someone implemented the old IPB theme! Pic: https://images.sftcdn.net/images/t_app-cover-m,f_auto/p/3753...
It was also, well, optional. None of that algoboosted dopamine-head datamining freakshow that's leaking into the world in a way that the AI alarmists seem to be ignoring entirely.
What got the initial critical mass of people hooked, is that they were already familiar with the idea of an online conversation space, and liked expressing themselves through that medium. So the idea of a unified global forum was alluring, and the ego-boost of personal bubbles, as well as the fact that the admins were staying out of sight, no doubt sealed the deal.
And then, well, you know what they say about boiling a frog. By the point the experience degraded beyond pointless, there was already enough of a data corpus to build the dopamine loops, and a critical mass of users - so that everybody would be "there" because everybody else would be "there".
Then, it started "replacing reality" by privatizing the means of social consensus. Any manipulative person will tell you (or won't) that normal human emotions are, in the end, quite predictable. If there's truth to "AI risk", who's to say it won't get to us through our emotions, like drugs do? Perfect crime against humanity, in plain sight. Not exaggerating in the slightest.
Thankfully there's enough "weirdos" to remember what the old Internet was all about, so an alternative is at least technically possible.