i started using the internet in the late 2000’s and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post … now its just random websites … if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site:reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter are not crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went…are there still active forums ?

    • odbol@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      It’s right there in the name: PHP

      Seriously though maintaining a PHP server is a security nightmare and you have to be constantly updating if you don’t want to be hacked. Just not worth it when there’s better options out there

    • anlumo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      1 year ago

      The software was so bad that if you didn’t keep up with emergency security fixes for even a week, the forum would instantly be taken over by someone. Being hacked was the natural state of that software.