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 ?
Yes, they are less prevalent due to Reddit and other social media sucking up a lot of the users.
They are still around though. One Australian forum that I’ve been on for years which is still very active is Whirlpool. Started as a tech forum and expanded. It’s very useful as source of info as it’s been around over 20 years and a lot of questions have been asked and answered there.