I genuinely believe that the best days of independent online community building are ahead of us. The world is overwhelming moving to a digital world, and the need for humans to connect with others over shared interests will always be there.
At the same time, I believe that it's going to be harder for independent communities to make their mark: the demands for community owners to provide value, define a unique strategy, and cut their way through the web have never been higher or harder.
What excites me is that there is a real need to elevate your strategy in a way that forum admins never did in the past. We opened up a forum over a topic we liked, and users joined. It doesn't work that way anymore, and we need to actually work hard at attracting users, providing value, and building content.