[jordwest]

I tend to agree, I’ve been thinking a lot over the years that this is the way we get out of this mess - lots and lots of smaller independently owned forums that splinter off onto small communities instead of monolithic single-identity mechanisms like social media & to some extent the fediverse.

> The only social stuff I interact with anymore is a private forum that's paid

Im curious when you say private, do you mean you can only post if you’re a member, or is all post content viewable only by members too? And if the latter, how did you discover the forum, and how did you decide to join?

[zhivota]

Nothing is accessible to non members. It's only $5/mo and the fee is explicitly to filter out people who don't care enough about the subject matter to pay a nominal fee.

I found it because someone I followed in my Twitter days hated how nasty conversations inevitably got there, and wanted a place to have in depth, non-ephemeral conversation with like minded people.

These days you'd probably discover it via X where they still post, or their Substack.