> From what I've seen, a lot - I'd say most - of the communities that existed outside of the major platforms have dried up or ended (the famous/infamous bodybuilding forum apparently just went down). Web forum communities, mailing list communities, communities built around an individuals website (it sounds strange to say now, but this was pretty common a couple of decades ago).
I would say that is simply because bodybuilding sucks and everyone with half a brain has moved to other activities like crossfit or similar that allows you to have a nice body that you can actually do something with instead of a useless one :)
More seriously this is not my experience. Two of the websites I visit the most in 2024 are the "traditionnal participative type", ie, privately owned, not social medias but with membership and comments and stuff. One is using a custom cms based on rails and has been launched in 1998, the other one is only 15y old but is running vbulletin.
And I still encounter many websites like this. Last time I had an issue with my Piaggio motorbike, I found a vespa dedicated web forum that was really helpful and active.
I think there are lots of people deep in social medias, reddit and discord and some who are fed up by this stuff and stay out of it. The issue is that privately owned websites cost money to run usually or are very stripped of customization/features/storage and moderation is a burden so you need very motivated people to keep the light on compared to say, a discord or reddit community that can stay online for months/years while the initial admins/founders aren't even connecting to it anymore.
I would say that is simply because bodybuilding sucks and everyone with half a brain has moved to other activities like crossfit or similar that allows you to have a nice body that you can actually do something with instead of a useless one :)
More seriously this is not my experience. Two of the websites I visit the most in 2024 are the "traditionnal participative type", ie, privately owned, not social medias but with membership and comments and stuff. One is using a custom cms based on rails and has been launched in 1998, the other one is only 15y old but is running vbulletin.
And I still encounter many websites like this. Last time I had an issue with my Piaggio motorbike, I found a vespa dedicated web forum that was really helpful and active.
I think there are lots of people deep in social medias, reddit and discord and some who are fed up by this stuff and stay out of it. The issue is that privately owned websites cost money to run usually or are very stripped of customization/features/storage and moderation is a burden so you need very motivated people to keep the light on compared to say, a discord or reddit community that can stay online for months/years while the initial admins/founders aren't even connecting to it anymore.