[seydor]

The main issues are : the control of advertising and the control of payments. The first is monopolized by Google, second is monopolized by VISA/mastercard.

Most people gave up on their forums and communities because they can't monetize effectively, as google favors mobile, large advertisers, and their own content (youtube). Visa will make up arbitrary rules about what content is allowed and in any case microtransactions is an unsolved problem. Things like Patreon make up even more rules and don't help, it soon becomes a festival of rent-seekers.

If you want to see people putting up things on the open web, start by fixing those