This. Actually launching a community is hard. Launching a decentralized network of communities is damn hard.
I’ve been around for long enough to remember the internet before megasites like Reddit, when every community had their own forums and/or website. Specific mod for a specific game? Unique forum. Specific sub-community of a fandom, like a bunch of tech nerds analyzing the starships in Star Wars? Unique forum.
And like, I don’t deny that losing that hurt. Each site had its own unique little flavor of community, and the great centralization of the internet definitely steamrolled that flat in favor of mainstream appeal. But centralizing did also improve ease of discovery and access. Now we’re trying to build all of those little communities back in what - 2-3 years? In comparison to the 10+ they had to grow in before? It’s not going to be easy.
This. Actually launching a community is hard. Launching a decentralized network of communities is damn hard.
I’ve been around for long enough to remember the internet before megasites like Reddit, when every community had their own forums and/or website. Specific mod for a specific game? Unique forum. Specific sub-community of a fandom, like a bunch of tech nerds analyzing the starships in Star Wars? Unique forum.
And like, I don’t deny that losing that hurt. Each site had its own unique little flavor of community, and the great centralization of the internet definitely steamrolled that flat in favor of mainstream appeal. But centralizing did also improve ease of discovery and access. Now we’re trying to build all of those little communities back in what - 2-3 years? In comparison to the 10+ they had to grow in before? It’s not going to be easy.