This article is on Medium, which has a paywall. I’m a member, but not logged in. I was able to read it so it may depend on how many times you’ve read Medium articles.
One point he made that I found interesting was:
So, in light of all of this, should Reddit even exist? Is there really a point to a web forum in 2023? Aren’t we past all that?
He thinks we are. I never thought about it before. Maybe in the case of some Reddit subreddits and other forums, but I don’t think so in general. I’ve got a lot great information from forums.
Anyone that says we’re “past” the days of forums, Reddit, Lemmy, etc. has an incredibly myopic view of what those really constitute.
It’s been mentioned the communities, but the problem solving and wealth of knowledge of those small, hyper-focused communities are unmatched.
Look no further than trying to find fixes through a web search, 90% of the crap you have to wade through is blogspam, which is mostly robot copy/pasted from other blogspam. The really helpful stuff is old forums and Reddit.
You can’t replace those specific questions and that specific knowledge with microblogs, blogs, or long form stuff like medium.
That’s the part that I don’t see how the author got to their position. Surely the author is well aware of the relationship between content and money, and sees the value in a community that’s not driven by the latter?