Its not just forums that are struggling. Not so many websites either!

[DigNap15]

We all know that forums are strugggling and many are closing.
But I am finding the same with websites - and its all down to Facebook and Twitter.
Eg in my small country there are lots of organisations that used to and should have a dedicated website.
Now they say to me follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
I think the reason is that setting up and maintiaing a website is time consuming and expensive.
Whereas anyone can strat a Facebook Page and get going right away.

What do you think?

 

[Kale]

Forums just feel less connected than they used to for sure. I have noticed even once active forums like Gaia Online, GameFAQs, etc have slowed down a lot over the years too.

 

[André]

😂Yo, does no one else actually see we're witnessing a massive corporate takeover.

 

[Reverie]

I do think that communities all over are struggling because people rely on their phones for internet mostly - or that is where their primary use is. Forums/Websites aren't always very well designed for mobile use. Facebook is easily accessible on the mobile, so I can see why people turn to such websites and apps instead. Wish there was a way to make things run a bit smoother on mobile. I know mobile themes are simple and work well, but I don't even think it's about appearance. Perhaps mobile themes do have larger links and etc, because I think the bigger problem is accessing information with ease.

 

[Arantor]

I think there's an interesting level of cause and effect here, and I don't think we can point to any one factor over or above the others.

1) Mobile rise

Yes, the smartphone revolution is a thing. But I think if you were to put a timeline on it, forums were still very much alive and well in 2007 when the iPhone came along as the real game-changer for a fully touch-first device (others may have preceded it but there's no doubt that the iPhone captured the imagination and the zeitgeist of the phone revolution; prior to that, the WAP experience was... sub-par at best, if even supported)

Mobile makes it easier to be connected wherever you are, whatever you're doing - so a good mobile experience is important... but... the biggest thing about a mobile experience is that it is not conducive to writing more than a few sentences. You *can*, you absolutely can write paragraphs and paragraphs of posts on a mobile but it's never going to be a big super happy fun time.

On the other hand, pictures and video are absolutely the kinds of content that a phone *can* produce. But they're kinds of content that forums in particular don't accommodate particularly well. Yes, you *can* put them in posts, but it's not a good experience. It feels clunky at best. Even if you solve the uploading problem, there's the small matter of cataloguing/curating that content. If you have a gallery add-on you can dump it in there but that pre-supposes you have one, and that the album experience isn't that tedious.

Compare to Facebook, you press a couple of things, and boom, the photo's there. No fuss, no mess, and it's dropped into an album for later reuse.

2) Speaking of Facebook

Facebook, Twitter, pick your social poison, there are a couple of reasons why they hoovered up traffic from the mid 2000s onwards. Are they contributory to the decline of forums? Sure. Are they contributory to the decline of people having their own sites? Also sure. Why would you make a site, fight for peoples' attention when there's a site just over there that has all the people already? Especially in a world moving towards consumption rather than creation? Why would you make a site and deal with hosting when Facebook, Twitter and Reddit will host it all for you?

We here may not agree with that view, but it *is* a popular view.

3) The increasing rise of corporatism

I've noted before (maybe not here) that the web has been under siege for some time against the infiltration of corporate influence. It's everywhere. But we as site owners have to accept that *we enabled this*. We had our own little corners of the web, and we conceded space to the advertisers in exchange for money. We traded our space for money, and we kept doing it.

Some people made a lot of money out of it, too. And sure as honey attracts flies, the lure of money attracts people. So there was always going to be that gold-rush phase once there were a few success stories.

But it's compounded in recent years with the rise of gig culture. Everyone's a creator if they want to be, everyone's a potential entrepreneur, everyone's got a side hustle. The American Dream if only you want it hard enough.

And with the increase in competition, people are going to go where the eyeballs are: the big sites. Doesn't matter if that's YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter... people are going to ply their trade where the market is. Look at the game dev market: people used to run their own sites to let you download and buy their games, but who does that any more? People put their games on Steam - never mind how many games Steam launches literally every single day, you put your wares where the people are.

And it's a vicious cycle - all the time you see people making money in these places, you can convince yourself that you can too. And with the global economic situation, it's also no surprise that people will run a side hustle to make their bills, with dreams of turning that into their career.

When I grew up, there was no such thing as 'streamers', let alone it being a possible *career*. Nearest anyone could get back then was the sort of thing you'd see in Wayne's World, two guys in their basement making public access shows for late night cable - their take on having a space to call their own to do their own thing. But they never could have had the reach that anyone can theoretically have with a site today. But because of the level of potential, plenty came to try...

4) Mobile Rise II: The Demand for Attention

Time was that people would go to work, do their hours, go home, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. Once you'd left work for the day, chances are you'd be limited as to availability. But with phones everywhere, people are far more effectively 'on the clock' than ever before - to the point where countries are looking to introduce legislation to ensure that workers can 'turn their phone off' when off the clock.

With people ever more tethered to their work as a result, people just have less time for contributing, let alone creating, things.

5) Advertising culture

I made a joke on the Reddit coins conversation that it was a strange concept for people to pay for things, rather than be commoditised. I spend a three-digit sum of money every month on Patreon for the creators I want to directly support. There are phone apps I've bought the ad-free in-app purchase - it's not really about the privacy thing or the data consumption either; it's the best way I can to ensure that I can vote with my feet for the content creators I want to directly support and also not prop up the advertising culture that pervades everywhere. We don't need to encourage this world where everyone's taking a piece of the pie, middlemen of middlemen.



Honestly, what needs to happen is an almighty market readjustment. Take some of the heat out of it, some of the money out of it, encourage people to do so for hobby purposes, like we did back in the day, and encourage a culture of people doing things out of the joy of doing it rather than profit being an endgame.

 

[an0nym0us]

Now, time is money and no one is interested in losing money on wasted time.

 

[Arantor]

Now, time is money and no one is interested in losing money on wasted time.

Time is money, but you can always make more money. The more we allow ourselves to be overruled by other peoples' desire for our time in place of our money, that's exactly what's going to continue to happen.

At some point we're going to cross a threshold where there's just more ad than content everywhere and we will have no-one but ourselves to blame.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Unfortunately social media has taken over the internet. Since a lot of people are use to using Facebook and Twitter, they often don't want to go back to using forums or websites... I feel like the early to mid 10's is when Facebook really took over. Even in the Myspace days, forums still coexisted with Myspace. Will there ever be a time where people make the switch back to forums and websites? Maybe whenever Facebook or Twitter shuts down, which if either one does shut down it won't be any time soon.

 

[Arantor]

Ask why that is.

Given that Facebook exists, why would people host a website at their own literal cost when they can post the same things on Facebook for more views, more people, more reactions?

 

[Tracy]

Forums just feel less connected than they used to for sure. I have noticed even once active forums like Gaia Online, GameFAQs, etc have slowed down a lot over the years too.

A simple forum is going to be hard to compete in todays "internet" experience. You are going to have to extend the forum to MUCH more than simple posts. This is the base I offer now on my site.

Given that Facebook exists, why would people host a website at their own literal cost when they can post the same things on Facebook for more views, more people, more reactions?

Maybe because they want to offer more integrated into the site directly related to them than what is offered? See above image... seriously doubt FB offers all of those.

Unfortunately social media has taken over the internet.

It's not so much that "social media" has taken over the internet... but moreso the inability of participants to carry on a detailed discourse on subjects and social media tends to enforce their "simple minds".

Now, time is money and no one is interested in losing money on wasted time.

And then you have those that rather provide information to users at no cost.... and continue to generate/create content for their consumption, again at not cost to them.

We had our own little corners of the web, and we conceded space to the advertisers in exchange for money. We traded our space for money, and we kept doing it.

Agreed... a portion of us did... and then there remained those of us that still have the "core" of the "interwebz" at heart... dispensation of information to anyone at no cost. Not all of us "bitched" ourselves out to "the mighty dollar". Some of us still run totally free sites. For me, it's simply "part & parcel" with my hobby.. and ALL hobbies cost money. I'd rather be spending it on what I do than a $30K bass boat and all the associated equipment, or $15K-$30K on the associated "hunting" requirements (decent sized lease locally is around $15K minimum for "crappy" land).
It simply remains a matter of priority. Just think how long $30K would go towards licensing and hosting a site. That base price would roughly be 30'ish YEARS at my current costs level.
The simple fact is, many get into this "field" with the idea to "make it rich"... and sorry, in todays age you aren't going to do that. You might was well quit while your are ahead, as VERY few will make a noticeable profit on a forum. If you look at it as simply a hobby that you can afford (until/if it blossoms) them you are WAY ahead.

As much as some might like to "whine" about my "attitude"... my "attitude" is MORE inline with the "original intent" of the internet than the current BS that many have, mine being basically the simple dispersing of knowledge to others at no cost..

 

[ClicketyKat]

We all know that forums are strugggling and many are closing.
But I am finding the same with websites - and its all down to Facebook and Twitter.
Eg in my small country there are lots of organisations that used to and should have a dedicated website.
Now they say to me follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
I think the reason is that setting up and maintiaing a website is time consuming and expensive.
Whereas anyone can strat a Facebook Page and get going right away.

What do you think?

I honestly hate it when I search out a restaurant and their "website" is just a Facebook page. That's not a real site! At least not to me. I think it's pure laziness and am finding that it could bite them later on because not everyone has a Facebook page, and when that happens, you can't really peruse someone's Facebook restaurant "website" unless you first log into Facebook. They're limiting their customers!!

My daughter designs webpages now and I told her to walk her neighborhood (she lives in a city) and give the restaurants a great deal if they let her set up a website for them. It's worth a shot.

 

[Arantor]

You are going to have to extend the forum to MUCH more than simple posts.

You don't *have* to offer all those things, because the reality is that people come for content that gets a reaction out of them, whether that's to answer a question or provoke a thought. But I've long suggested that these should all be doable directly in 'the community' without being siloed off.

I think I even suggested as much before you got on my case for not having a business model.

Maybe because they want to offer more integrated into the site directly related to them than what is offered? See above image... seriously doubt FB offers all of those.

Forums - FB Groups. Articles - posts to your wall. Showcase - posts to your wall, though it's not a feature most sites (of any kind) need. Gallery - posts to your wall + your media. Groups - FB Groups. Resources, Reviews, Link Directory - nope, not unless you're posting it to your wall but frankly... wrong venue, wrong audience. Classifieds - yup, FB Marketplace.

You'd be surprised what FB offers these days in its attempts to stay relevant and at the centre of your digital world - and of course it has the events functionality. But it also has things you can't match, such as the games ecosystem.

No-one is disputing that a bare forum isn't going to go far in most cases, but you don't need to have a menu as long as your arm to attract people. You just need to have compelling content for your audience, which varies between audiences.

I was proposing that we made this easier to do out of the box but y'know, people didn't seem to like that idea. Can't imagine why.

Agreed... a portion of us did... and then there remained those of us that still have the "core" of the "interwebz" at heart... dispensation of information to anyone at no cost. Not all of us "bitched" ourselves out to "the mighty dollar".

You did, though, not that you realise it.

You pointed out to me that the only way to compete in the forum world is to pay to play - this isn't the spirit of the core of the internet.

There's a reason Berners-Lee made HTML free to use, there's a reason the first web servers were free. Even the first web browser was free - it was even made open source. In fact the first web browser was also a super-crude web *publisher*. It was baked into the very soul of the world wide web for people to share without having to invest majorly to do it. (The origins of 'the internet' are much murkier and involve groups like ARPAnet, though it also involves a lot of universities who also were quite happy to share resources for the common good.)

Telling people that it's only viable for them to compete with publishing information if they have to spend more than a nominal fee to do it (because servers and electricity aren't free) is just as selling out to the mighty dollar in principle, if not as thoroughly otherwise.

And before you get comfortable on your little pious mount of how saintly you are, I will remind you that I contributed to free/open source forum software, I was one of the people who helped *get it to be open source* and I contributed many, many hours towards its ecosystem, releasing not only over 100 open source add-ons, but any amount of technical support and helping people alongside that.

Is it cool what you're doing? Sure, you're sharing what you know. Always a good thing in my book, sharing is caring. But don't pretend that you're doing the world a favour by discouraging attempts to think about alternatives because you don't like the business model.

Heck, if I didn't know better, I'd almost take your previous complaining about my thoughts on an open source competitor as sour grapes that you invested in XF and ecosystem and you don't like the idea of other people getting tools for free instead. ALMOST, though. I know deep down you meant well. Didn't come across like it though.

 

[DigNap15]

Some great comment on my OP

Some of you have picked up that I was talking about websites disppareaping.
So many organisations and business (at least in my small country) now have a Facebook page and can't be bothered with a standalone website

Its not a good trend

 

[Tracy]

You don't *have* to offer all those things, because the reality is that people come for content that gets a reaction out of them, whether that's to answer a question or provoke a thought. But I've long suggested that these should all be doable directly in 'the community' without being siloed off.

Yep, and I don't have to offer anything (like a site) at all.... but I CHOOSE to, as it offers MORE content of interest.
But I also agree with the issue of it being siloed. Content tends/trends to be harder to share/find. At least with XF, you can share (if your editor is set to do so) any of those add-ons content(s) into a post easily.

Forums - FB Groups. Articles - posts to your wall. Showcase - posts to your wall, though it's not a feature most sites (of any kind) need. Gallery - posts to your wall + your media. Groups - FB Groups. Resources, Reviews, Link Directory - nope, not unless you're posting it to your wall but frankly... wrong venue, wrong audience. Classifieds - yup, FB Marketplace.

And lose them for ease of finding... and NOT be able to do stuff like this (consistently) for the benefit of others (because we are actually talking about sharing data and allowing others to do so also, and that is done via a group typically). You have to have the ability to provide some structure for the data. FB Marketplace is somewhat similar... but once more... that Marketplace is very limited in scope, especially for reviewing your purchases and it tracking to a particular seller.

Of course, you are WELL aware of this... you simply try to erect a straw man.

You pointed out to me that the only way to compete in the forum world is to pay to play - this isn't the spirit of the core of the internet.

Ultimately now SOMEBODY has to pay.... you know, it's not all given to us for free. Somebody has to pay the hosting bills at the minimal. And before you try to do the "but there are free hosting sites", somebody is footing the bill for those, and they generally are getting a financial return in some manner. The thing is, there ARE those of us that are willing to do the pay part, and GIVE the benefit to others with no desire to "make money". Meanwhile there are those that look at it as strictly a money making proposition.
There has been a major societal shift over the last 4 decades. It went from "sharing & caring" to "show me the money". You see it regularly in everyday life... how often now do you actually see young men holding open doors for ladies and allowing them to enter first?

Telling people that it's only viable for them to compete with publishing information if they have to spend more than a nominal fee to do it (because servers and electricity aren't free) is just as selling out to the mighty dollar in principle, if not as thoroughly otherwise.

Once more, it's a simple fact of life... somebody has to pay for that infrastructure. The internet is not a socialist platform that is provided "free for use". It's a money making proposition as someone has to pay for (and get reimbursed) for it unless they chose to do it totally for free (not something you will find in todays age when dealing with the internet backbone). This goes back to even "pre-internet". You don't actually think that those BBS's that so many used were "free" do you? My computer to run mine cost me $3000 to run a simple OS/2 install, and then I had to pay for the 3 POTS lines for the traffic, then the modems to put on there (about another $1800)... and that is 1990's monies. That would be around $10,000 in todays dollars in base equipment and around $175 a month for the POTS lines. So ultimately somebody had to pay for it and allow others to "play". That ability wasn't free to obtain just because others were getting it for free.

And before you get comfortable on your little pious mount of how saintly you are, I will remind you that I contributed to free/open source forum software, I was one of the people who helped *get it to be open source* and I contributed many, many hours towards its ecosystem, releasing not only over 100 open source add-ons, but any amount of technical support and helping people alongside that.

Good for you.... and I'm going to assume a noticeable portion of that was via SMF... tell us, how "popular" and "advanced" is that script when compared to the paid alternatives? I know for the site I'm playing with it on, it's sorely lacking in features I want to offer when compared to those "pay to play" scripts.

Is it cool what you're doing? Sure, you're sharing what you know. Always a good thing in my book, sharing is caring. But don't pretend that you're doing the world a favour by discouraging attempts to think about alternatives because you don't like the business model.

You may have seen it as "discourage"... but the the simple fact was, I and at least one other pointed out a glaring weakness in your desire. If you have time to burn/waste on a project that YOU want to do, then kudos to you and go for it... but realize that unless you come out with something like LCARS, you are simply re-inventing the wheel, and it's not very likely to gain much traction. The biggest issue you would face is much of what has been "wished for" takes a bigger infrastructure than a simple shared/free hosting account. Why do you think folks like IPS have "limited features" that are only offered on their SaaS offering... it's because many of those self-hosted script admins won't (or can't) invest in the infrastructure to do some of what it offers. Yes, some of it they could offer as a "premium add-on"... but then you will still have issues there with latency and connectivity at times.

Heck, if I didn't know better, I'd almost take your previous complaining about my thoughts on an open source competitor as sour grapes that you invested in XF and ecosystem and you don't like the idea of other people getting tools for free instead. ALMOST, though. I know deep down you meant well. Didn't come across like it though.

Nope... you see, I've also invested in the ecosystem of WBBS and IPS... I simply am realistic enough to recognize that your "freeware/shareware" solutions can't compete with the paid ones, either in what they offer, and especially in timely updates/fixes (I've played with most of the major free scripts over the decade and helped others with their sites on them).... the base reason being there is a financial incentive for those paid scripts to move forward. That's one of the things that the XF developers are riding heat over.... it's been almost 3 years since any x.Y.z release.... and folks are getting impatient and "voting with their feet" and moving to other paid scripts (mainly IPS). I've assisted 3 with such moves in the last few months.
.

 

[Arantor]

And lose them for ease of finding... and NOT be able to do stuff like this (consistently) for the benefit of others (because we are actually talking about sharing data and allowing others to do so also, and that is done via a group typically)

Not all sites are about sharing information, which kind of limits your point somewhat. Half the sites I've *ever* built would have no use of half the addons you have, and if I scaled it up to every site I've ever worked on? Think the value actually drops even more - reality is, you're actually kind of an outlier but assume you're the default case.

Ultimately now SOMEBODY has to pay.... you know, it's not all given to us for free.

I even agreed with you about the infrastructure side of it, but most of the actual real advancements for the interconnectedness thing were made possible out of research grants and then businesses figuring out they could profit off the back of the actual hard work.

Good for you.... and I'm going to assume a noticeable portion of that was via SMF... tell us, how "popular" and "advanced" is that script when compared to the paid alternatives? I know for the site I'm playing with it on, it's sorely lacking in features I want to offer when compared to those "pay to play" scripts.

Let's put aside for a minute how much of an outlier you are in terms of structured data, let's take the strawman you're really getting at, that the presumption that open source is far behind because it's not interested in money. And that you're making the bigger assumption that the problem is a lack of resources.

It's really not. It's the fact that the open source projects - especially the ones with BB in the name - have built their identity around being a forum. The ones that have 'forum' in the name have the same problem. These projects are largely run democratically with some weird personality clashes, whereupon the people who are most pushing for the status quo shout down any non-conformant ideas.

To give you a practical demonstration, the incident that led me to quit the SMF team in 2014. In SMF prior to 2.1, sub-boards were called child boards. But after a string of people complaining that this was confusing (it's a technical term and non-technical people were having trouble with it), I just said 'hey, instead of people being all confused and needing to install an add-on to change a language string, or being shown how to use the language editor to change a language string, why not... just change the default language string?'

Literally that, just changing two words caused a multi-page debate on 'how it's always been'.

They're not interested in moving forward - there are vocal critics who want the alerts system from 2.1 removed in favour of the old email notifications because having two choices for how to get notifications is confusing.

There is even a vocal minority who would be quite happy to stay on the 2006-era 1.1 if it were still supported (never mind the technical effort in actually doing so). And SMF at least (though I gather MyBB and phpBB are in the same general boat) takes the view that it's better to not rock the boat by being daring or considering much change. There is a real conservative (as in desire for unchanging, rather than any political mindset) view that it's 'just' a forum, that CMS or other addons should be left to third parties and so on. Funnily enough that sounds an awful lot like XF's current position to me rather than an actual issue of resource.

Some of this I even sympathise with - SMF has a known group of their user base who are all in the 70+ age range - change *is* hard especially in a world that seems determined to leave you behind. So with that in mind, the leadership would absolutely rather not push for change, even much in the way of incremental improvements, because the userbase vocally complain about it. It's not even something like an addon compatibility problem, it's just a straight up 'don't want different'.

I've been asking for the last if they have a roadmap because I had a ton of features I'd built that I could contribute, but I wasn't going to waste my time making them suitable for a core patch and pull request etc. if they weren't interested. Even after providing a list of over 150 things I wanted to see on a future roadmap, with code for 90 of them, I got nothing except a former member of the dev team saying the list seemed interesting.

I believe phpBB and MyBB have a similar issue: it's far more a lack of ambition than it is a lack of ability or resource.

It's also why I get so angry with you - because you don't like the status quo but you're shouting down any debate of change because you think it won't go anywhere... how about taking that stick outta your ass and just consider what *could* be done for once? Instead of worrying about the technical or practical feasibility, just dare to dream for once. It might make you less cranky in general.

Nope... you see, I've also invested in the ecosystem of WBBS and IPS...

Yes, I know. That's why I said it's "almost like" as opposed to "it is" because I know you've got licenses and addons for those (like The Pipe Stand was on IPS at one point), and I know that you mean well with trying to point out the perceived reality of how you feel an open source project would pan out, I'm just pointing out that getting on my case about it isn't actually helpful even if you're just trying to keep me grounded with some realism.

We both agree the current status quo across the forum world is lacking - I'm trying to gently figure out how to move things forward because I don't want to build just another SMF or another IPS or another XF. I want to figure out how to build something *better*. Build it once, build it right.

You see, I already have people who would join the endeavour as implementors, but I've been holding off until I have an actual plan - and it may surprise you to know that I do want your input on what we could do better as a platform that the current platforms don't do so well. Just... a little less of the 'you're already doomed, give it up unless you go paid' - I personally don't want to go there, because a) I'm not interested and b) I'm no good at business, but there are people I've been speaking to who might be willing to get involved *once there's a product/service to actually sell*. Hell, even in VC land you don't generally go that far unless you can get a vague proof of concept shaped thing going (at least based on the businesses I work with that are VC funded...!)

I appreciate you're trying to keep it real but all it's doing is stomping on the bit that has to happen first - the creative angle that puts down a compelling solution that does things the others can't do.

 

[Tracy]

Not all sites are about sharing information, which kind of limits your point somewhat. Half the sites I've *ever* built would have no use of half the addons you have, and if I scaled it up to every site I've ever worked on? Think the value actually drops even more - reality is, you're actually kind of an outlier but assume you're the default case.

Funny... there seem to be PLENTY of sites that use similar add-ons... why look at that menu bar.... 4 of the very ones I use are in use here also! Just imagine.....

Let's put aside for a minute how much of an outlier you are in terms of structured data, let's take the strawman you're really getting at, that the presumption that open source is far behind because it's not interested in money. And that you're making the bigger assumption that the problem is a lack of resources.

As we are sitting on a site that is using 4 of those type add-ons to discourse about this... yeah, let's. Newsflash... there are NUMEROUS sites using at least 1 if not more of those very add-ons in the XF world.... of course, others can't be using them if they don't run XF - but similar are present for IPS either by 3rd party solutions are actually created in IPS Pages.
And yes.... for much of the "neat shit" that keeps being mentioned.... shared hosting isn't going to be your "happy place".... and most of those that run "free scripts" tend/trend towards cheap hosting.... and that hosting is cheap for a reason.

We both agree the current status quo across the forum world is lacking - I'm trying to gently figure out how to move things forward because I don't want to build just another SMF or another IPS or another XF. I want to figure out how to build something *better*. Build it once, build it right.

And I don't think there is any "easy" answer..... ideally, you would have a format similar to what we currently have (which is familiar to all), but it have ability to have a mobile app that can utilize the base and any additional add-ons for those that prefer using mobil devices for interaction (which is most of those younger generations as not as many sit down at a desktop or laptop to do so unless at work). In addition, the data would not be siloed from each other and could be used in a relational format on custom created pages.
There have been numerous attempts to "solve" this issue already (Flarum and Discourse being two examples). None have been overly successful.... part of this is simply due to limitations of current technology.

You see, I already have people who would join the endeavour as implementors, but I've been holding off until I have an actual plan

And the problem you will have is one that carries over to every other "shared script"... you are dependent upon someone who has "no skin in the game"..... and can (and do as you are well aware) walk off for any and all reasons, sometimes leaving you stuck out.
Paid scripts do not suffer this negative impact, as, by the very nature the code developers have "skin in the game" .... a paycheck. And it's easy enough to find another if one leaves, as you simply offer that paycheck to someone else.

 

[Arantor]

As we are sitting on a site that is using 4 of those type add-ons to discourse about this... yeah, let's. Newsflash... there are NUMEROUS sites using at least 1 if not more of those very add-ons in the XF world....

And? Newsflash, I've worked on a good many sites that have no need for classifieds or a link directory or a shop. And just because there are numerous sites using them doesn't mean they represent the majority by any stretch, but you knew that.

you are dependent upon someone who has "no skin in the game"

I guess you don't understand what open source means.

 

[Tracy]

And? Newsflash, I've worked on a good many sites that have no need for classifieds or a link directory or a shop. And just because there are numerous sites using them doesn't mean they represent the majority by any stretch, but you knew that.

Yes, and you've also worked on sites that DID need those I am sure.... you see, the internet is not a "one size fits all" proposition...
And please, show me where I EVER claimed that they represented the "majority"... but you AND I both know that even with WP, it frequently gets extended ... you know, with those things like "shops" and whatnot for ecommerce.
Of the 3 admin sites I am on, ALL of them use at least one of those add-ons.... and funnily enough... there are a LOT more niche specific XF sites that do also. Wonder why? Maybe because they want to offer MORE than a simple forum?

I guess you don't understand what open source means.

Oh, I'm WELL aware of what open-source means... and I'm also WELL aware that public supported open-source software has a habit of not getting updated regularly... but of course, I know you ALSO are aware that many of those "open source" softwares get worked on by employees for companies... and guess what... those employees aren't sitting there coding for free.
You try to act like open source is some "magical word"... guess what, it's not. It simply means that source is provided for free.
Canonical ring a bell?
How about Redhat?
Or Suse?
I can give you multiple other examples where open source products are supported commercially.

 

[Arantor]

And as usual you missed my point. Canonical's success with Ubuntu relies on Debian - open source means you can take things and do your own thing. Meanwhile SuSE started out as a derivation of Slackware. It's almost like starting from open source is actually a great place to start for longer term survival. But, of course, open source has the benefit that if the developers were to walk away, others could continue it if there was sufficient interest.

Hell, I guarantee you if InvisionFree were open source, people would be carrying it on and improving it just as people still use it in hosting forums today (yes, that's a thing).

In fact, the very existence at all of Flarum is the product of the developers of PunBB/FluxBB/esoTalk abandoning them and starting over, while the continued existence of phpBB/MyBB/SMF/et al is still the fact that the original people don't contribute but others took it on in their wake. Almost like open source actually works after all.

You realise that I'm not disputing the existence of commercial support. I'm just disputing that you have to start with commercial support out of the box, or that *I* should be dealing with that part of it.

 

[Tracy]

nd as usual you missed my point. Canonical's success with Ubuntu relies on Debian - open source means you can take things and do your own thing.

That's right... and Canonical, RedHat and Suse ALL give back to the open source community... so YOU miss the point. Open source doesn't equate to "no finances involved". You see, those companies pay developers also to extend the open source product. YOU seem to equate "open source" with "free with no cost ever involved". It's not a "magic word" that means "nobody pays". It simply means that all benefit.
Guess why one of the reasons that Ubuntu is "cutting edge" and Debian is the "staid old reliable".