Twitter and Facebook are forums, they just have prettier interfaces. And I think that's one thing that's become more important as the internet has evolved.

I mean, I'm glad this forum is here but this software is from when? 2000? 2002? The text is harder to read. When you reply and want to quote people, you have to play around with BB code. It's harder to share photos and videos than most other social sites. No cute little hearts to quickly show you like something. And I believe the attention span of people has been engineered to be shorter. So the kind of people who enjoy these spaces tend to be people who actually enjoy thinking and conversation, rather than just quick dopamine fixes that the others provide.