i started using the internet in the late 2000’s and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post … now its just random websites … if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site.reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter nor crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went…are there still active forums ?
I would even argue that Lemmy is more of a return to traditional forums from reddit due to the independent nature of each instance.
I wouldn’t say its a return of traditional forums. Far from it really design wise. I think its more of a return to independence and decentralization. I think we’re done with the whole “Web 2.0. Everything in one convenient place” and want to back to an era where things were much harder to find and communities were a lot more separated and dedicated to their own spaces. The fediverse isn’t the end all be all and we’re gonna suddenly go back to the 90s but to me, it’s an honest step in the right direction that could really change the internet for the better.
Not done with it. We want both decentralization and everything in a convenient place. Best of both worlds. So we end up with a discussion board that is also an rss reader, aka the activitypub protocol.
I’m hoping your right, that it changes the web for the better. But most people follow advertisements right back into the clutches of corpo-controlled products.
The thing is I expect places like Lemmy and even Mastodon to eventually fall to this behavior. The reason I’m even viewing them as services that should be must for the common user is the mere ability to even move out without having to leave everything behind (if you catch what i’m saying) thats the real core difference and hope that I have. The problem is again like anlumo said, defederation is definitely going to be a major hurdle and one where major companies will especially take advantage of.