Federation isn't a solution because it adds the requirement to know how to host an instance. Delegating the hosting to providers defeats the purpose of decentralization. True federation like here is janky. Bluesky-style federation suffers centralization of power.
I don't think it's possible to get "mainstream communities" away from Discord to any open alternative. Not after they got a taste of maximal convenience.
For forums to make a comeback, they'd have to reach the same level of convenience. People would like to have a single account which allows them to browse forums and use them without having to register over and over again. People who want to run a community shouldn't be required to have technical knowledge about how to host a forum software. And of course, things generally shouldn't be janky.
Those are the minimal requirements which are only viable if a single huge provider runs the show.
I still need to port that article from my old website where I talk about Discord and how the convenience offered by big platforms has turned us into lazy fucks
@petafloppa I'm fine with dependencies if I feel I can't implement them myself, but a lightbox really isn't all that complex, even with the code to handle panning and zooming.
Volpeon