I was initially optimistic about Lemmy but it doesn’t seem to have caught on much, certainly not enough to truly compete with the likes of Reddit. Also, it doesn’t seem to have caught on except for topics involving technology. Even as someone really proactive trying to branch out into forums, it is next to impossible to find forums analogous to the forums of the 2000s/early 2010s. Has it truly died out? Is there any way to replicate it?
The one thing I can think of is to have a foundation built firmly on open source principles, which works on its UI and marketing to the point where network effects can truly take off. Most open source alternatives really do not focus enough on UI and general appeal to make this work.
I’m happy to be proven wrong; if I’m just not looking in the right places, please do link them!
A lot of the old forum applications still exist. A lot of old school forums are actually still around. The problem with old school forums compared to Reddit or Lemmy is that it’s just so much easier to get people to join a subreddit or a Lemmy community. If someone discovers a subreddit, all they need to do is go there and start posting. Creating a new account usually isn’t that hard but it’s still a considerable hurdle for someone who is considering joining.
Old school forums are simply too decentralized. It’s a lot easier to get reddit.com to come up in search results then it is for some relatively obscure forum.