> Using Reddit, a single forum about Ubuntu (/r/Ubuntu) would cost around $5 a month on DO for someone to host themselves. Using something like BBForum or something similar would not require much in the way of maintenance.
For that $5 however, you're not getting DDoS and spam protection.
> The point I am making is that all this stuff existed long before the big tech platforms. It can easily exist without them too. They are not actually providing anything of any worth that couldn't easily be found elsewhere (well, used to be found elsewhere!).
There's a reason ye olde ways of communication are pretty much dead, replaced by centralized platforms... dealing with the obvious noise of hackers, script-kiddies, spammers, piracy and CSAM is the biggest IMO. As a moderator of a sub-reddit, you don't have to deal with any of that, you are free to focus on moderating content - and unlike mailing lists, usenet or classic forums the users can perform self-moderation by downvoting, further lessening your load.
Spam protection has been around for years and years. It's nothing new. Sure, Reddit may have a handful of devs dedicated to perfecting it for their platform but there are a huge number of solutions to spam and I bet many commercial and OSS ones too.
DDOS is provided by many hosting companies now for free.
Now, I'm not trying to make this out like the Dropbox post many years ago comparing it to self-hosting, nothing of the sort.
But Reddit (and other tech giants) provide very little above basic forums imo and in any case, the price is too high!
Although the point of being centralised is portrayed as a negative, that is the single largest benefit these platforms provide over forums.
Yes it is easy to make a forum and throw it on some low cost hosting, for a person skilled in IT. However FB, Reddit et al. provide a platform (heh) to any kind of group no matter the size. Nobody wants to create dozens of accounts for their local chess club, their local shop, their local pub and whatever. I can be a member of a anti Phillips screw subreddit, but wouldn’t create a forum for it.
Counter anecdote: the last traditional forum that I have any interaction with was so plagued by spam that they turned off registration and the new registration system is “send an email to the admin asking for an account”. Needless to say, they aren’t a growing community anymore. They also don’t use SSL because none of their admins are fluent enough to set up LetsEncrypt. Don’t forget that lots of non-technical or less-technical people like to have forums too.
For that $5 however, you're not getting DDoS and spam protection.
> The point I am making is that all this stuff existed long before the big tech platforms. It can easily exist without them too. They are not actually providing anything of any worth that couldn't easily be found elsewhere (well, used to be found elsewhere!).
There's a reason ye olde ways of communication are pretty much dead, replaced by centralized platforms... dealing with the obvious noise of hackers, script-kiddies, spammers, piracy and CSAM is the biggest IMO. As a moderator of a sub-reddit, you don't have to deal with any of that, you are free to focus on moderating content - and unlike mailing lists, usenet or classic forums the users can perform self-moderation by downvoting, further lessening your load.