I’m not convinced any single platform will eclipse Twitter at its peak (for intellectual/issues discussions), but I think that’s a good thing.

Forums were always topic focused - you could get together with other folks interested in the same thing as you and chat.

Communities should be communities, not one huge pot where everyone’s shoved together - that’s just a recipe for people to dunk on each other instead of actually sharing ideas. Short posts in social-media-byte-sized takes don’t convince anyone of anything, you need a primed audience and long form posts.

Not having An Algorithm helps - you follow who you want to see and create your own community, but that leaves something lacking - missing a broader narrative.

Reddit tried it with subreddits, but the format wasn’t conducive to great discussion either.

With Telegram (and discord) we’ve seen a return to small communities (via Group Chats, which I’m told are especially popular with The Youths).

nostr/mastodon have strongly self-selected for certain communities, and to some extent those still active on Twitter have as well.

I dunno the future or what to do with it, but there seems to be a real trend towards smaller communities, it means more groupthink but also much more relaxed environment where ideas can be shared with less friction.