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I think forums could make a comeback over the next 3-5 years. Big platforms like Reddit, Discord and Facebook have been testing their userbase's loyalty for a long time now. If you look at Mastodon, HN, and even Tumblr, you can see a viable number of people are fine with smaller communities, as long as they are genuine and quality. Forums -- especially specialist forums -- have always been great for that.

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I feel like the Internet where forums thrived is very different from the present Internet. Forums won't make a comeback because they're much harder to make money or clout from, and the owners get to assume all the risk of hosting content, dealing with deplatforming by payment processors, and trying to find people to advertise.

Regardless of how you feel about them, Kiwifarms is what would happen to any forum that got too successful without the approval of a major player: a constant barrage of being removed from hosting providers, DDOS mitigation platforms and domain registrars.

Forums still exist because they're passion projects to very niche communities with very stubborn people. I treasure those communities but that's kind of incompatible with mainstream Internet and consumption habits.

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