Do you think forums will outlast social media?

[HeartbreakKidStinger64]

Curious what people here actually think about this.

Interested in what people actually do rather than what they think they should do.

Has anyone here actually tried it?

[XtremeMoxley69]

Forums have already outlasted several waves of social media, which should tell you something. Remember Friendster? MySpace? Google+? Vine? All gone. Meanwhile, specialist forums from the early 2000s are still humming along with dedicated communities. The difference is sustainability versus hype.

Social media platforms are built on growth-at-all-costs models. They need constant engagement, ad revenue, and shareholder satisfaction. When that falters, the platform dies or gets gutted. Forums are simpler: they're just spaces for people to talk. No algorithm, no infinite scroll, no pressure to monetise every interaction. That's why they endure.

The trade-off is visibility. Social media feels alive because it's noisy. Forums are quieter, more focused. If you're looking for genuine discussion rather than dopamine hits, forums win every time.

[Taz18]

Not convinced. Social media has something forums never had: network effects. Everyone's already on Instagram, TikTok, X. The friction of joining a new forum, creating an account, learning the layout, that's enough to stop most people. Convenience beats quality for most users, sad as that is.

That said, forums survive in niches. Photography, coding, cars, gaming, niche hobbies. Places where depth matters more than breadth. You won't find that on Twitter, where threads get buried in minutes. But mainstream? Social media has won that battle.

[Quarry92]

The real question is: what do you mean by "outlast"? If you mean "still exist in some form", then yes, forums will be around. But if you mean "remain culturally relevant", that's harder. Most people under 25 have probably never used a traditional forum. They've grown up with Discord servers, subreddits, and group chats. Those are forums in spirit, just with different interfaces.

Reddit is basically a forum network with better UX and worse moderation. Discord servers are forums with real-time chat. The format evolves, but the core need persists: people want spaces to discuss shared interests without performing for an algorithm. That's not going away.

So forums will outlast social media in the sense that they'll keep existing. But they'll remain niche, which is fine. Niche communities are often the best ones anyway.