[samtho]

Reddit is popular for many reasons but one reason for engagement among multiple communities (subs) stands out above the rest: the cost to join is a single button. You are already logged in and all you need to is discover communities that already exist on the platform, which Reddit facilitates by automatically linking certain strings like /r/subreddit which will naturally (or unnaturally) pop up in conversation. This is a contrast to the way that Web 1.0 and 2.0 BBSes and forums operated where each fiefdom operates independently, requires a user account, and admins or moderators typically had strict rules about linking to other communities out of fear of loosing their own members because the cost for their members to join other communities means an reduction of time spent on their own.

Discord is allows this in a sort of a roundabout (and a rather inelegant) way by letting people send invite links, but discord makes joining a new community a seamless experience, all without you from leaving the discord platform, allowing you to simply switch among your joined communities to engage with each one.

I suspect that this lack of friction to jump on to a familiar platform is a primary motivator exacerbated by the fact that people just want to move as quickly as possible. Discord is already known, familiar, trusted, free, and requires no setup or specialized knowledge on the part of the operator. Moving to a different forum would also require a user to potentially create an new account which in a notoriously friction filled process.

A permanent repository of knowledge made available by a forum’s history is ideal but the people who generate that discussion are not going to be the ones that need that now - they need the community wherever that may exist. I think it would be tragic to see in the long term all this information be kept behind a gate and intermingled with idle chit chat.