Discord has killed so many forums.

The typical path is:

Independent server -> reddit -> discord -> nothing

They move from the independent servers. perhaps to save money. Perhaps to avoid legal liability that we didn't have in the early days of the Internet; a sign of growing technofacism where even a signature from every Latin American leader to release Julian Assange doesn't matter to the USA, nor core amendments in the core construction of the country.

Then, moving to reddit, which has centralised everything such that appending "reddit" in the end of every Google search is the only way to avoid spam.

Finally, the move to Discord is the final nail, where content is locked and the Google bot locked out. This prevents both current users and new users from finding each other and interacting.

The Unibomber was right. Technology starts off good, but over time as society adapts to it, it becomes a tool of control and fascism. We can see it here. We see it everywhere. We will see it everywhere where people don't appreciate what technology is.

It isn't always this way.

During the time of Stonehenge, a neolithic culture decided to turn its back on agriculture, going back to nomadic hunting and gathering. They decided to keep some domestic animals with them. Why? Probably because they realised the grains were messing with their health. If they can do something as extreme as that, We should be able to sacrifice instant chat and voice chat for getting online community back.

Having said this, how often does legal liability scare people off from self hosting?