When do you think forums were at their biggest peak?

[Shawn Gossman]

Do you think forums have already seen their biggest peaks in activity?

If so, when do you think this was?

Do you think we'll ever get them back to something like that?

 

[AWS]

They sure have. Like peak oil it happened sooner than it showed.

I think the peak was between 2005 and 2008. There was a slow decline after that. The younger generation were attracted to MySpace. Forums were still active with the old school forumers. Then facebook and Twitter came into play. Forums started to rapidly declined. Still the old guard were loyal to forums.

Forums had to adapt. Discourse and others like it came into play. They are attractive to the younger generation because they have the same feel as Twitter and Facebook. It is seen as the revival of forums. Sites like Reddit and Stack Exchange lead the way.

Forums with the old dated forum home are indeed about dead. Forums are not and never will be as long as they continue to adapt.

 

[Tracy]

Forums are not and never will be as long as they continue to adapt.

I think you meant "fail to continue"... and I have to agree strongly with that point.
Xenforo is a classic example. The developers have so many cheerleaders blowing smoke up their padded posteriors about how great it is and they sit back and soak in their echo chamber accolades believing all is great in the world, meanwhile other scripts are pushing forward on what they offer to compel users to visit.
Honestly... forums (the simple forum itself) is where BBS's were during their decline when the internet (UseNet) was getting popular. You will continue to see forums pop up and blow away after a period, and some of the better established ones will hang on for a while longer.
But unless the developers start concentrating (and this is not XF specific) onto making their platform a more encompassing suite of products that are mobile friendly they will slowly languish and die.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

So, my big question is how much are XF and other paid software devs earning for being devs?

If it's just volunteer, I can see why they wouldn't be adding much value. It takes a lot of work to program new features. When you see all these SaaS platforms popping up and making people rich, these days, it's hard to want to keep making the best things for free.

I mean most SaaS platforms offer way more features and charge monthly what XF charges a year.

To me, XF is like an open-source software that costs money if that makes any sense? Basically I'm putting most SaaS platforms on a higher pedestal. Nothing against XF, either.

Look at Circle. For $100 a month, you have a forum, courses, chat, webinar abilities, and a newsletter all built into one. It looks as modern as heck, too!

XF is very niche. Those of us who like that old school forum software are the niche. There are a lot of folks who aren't like us, more folks than us.

I think eventually XF and other software will cease to exist.

 

[Tracy]

I think eventually XF and other software will cease to exist.

For all the lip service that the XF developers (the ones that actually communicate with the plebes) want to give about how "great" they are doing, they sure do seem defensive when the health of XF is brought up. I'm pretty sure we are all aware that community websites (especially those that are limited to a forum only format) are not doing as well as they once were. Trying to argue against that is ultimately a losing propostion. Now, that does not equate to there are still a lot out there that are of the "I'll get rich quick if I throw up a form" belief... you see it regularly on "how do I make money/how to make money from a/my site" type posts. Generally the only ones that actually make money are the ones selling the software. And that revenue source is diminishing as more and more do talk about how difficult it is to make money from a website now, and how hard it is if that website is really only based around a forum.

Xenforo is really the worst of the bunch about this right now as they, for years, have struggled to bring QOL features to their script offering (core and especially their 1st party add-ons) that allow their license holders to attract users. Xenforo has generally been more about back end/3rd party developer and admin related improvements with a smattering of QOL ones (usually barely stubbed out begging for 3rd party extension). Invision is a little better... but they all struggle with having to maintain the same basic design structure that they have had. It will ultimately take a major shift in design to hopefully get users back. And no, I don't know what that shift would be. If I did, I'd already be getting a core group together to get rich by having it developed. I just am intelligent enough to realize that there has to be a shift.

So, my big question is how much are XF and other paid software devs earning for being devs?

You won't ever see that, just like you will never see the full financial reports of them.