I believe we are about to see a radical shift in how we use the internet, we just don't know what will take form yet.
Most of us were on forums and IRCs 10-15 years ago. After that, most of us went to social media.
I think we are reaching the end of the social media era as we know it.
Right now, people are leaving places like Twitter and Reddit and moving to federated/decentralized social platforms.
What's to come after this?
Not sure. Only time will tell.
With the increasing doubt we have on centralized services, I believe we will see more advocate for decentralized/fediverse platforms.
Maybe the big companies (MAANG) of the world will try and get their hands all over it and centralize it again, maybe not. I would not like to see that become a reality, but it's one of the paths I see right now.
One thing I do predict is that we will begin to see more specialized sites for specific themes, sorta like forums in a way. For instance, a site for communities such as fandoms.
We sorta have this on Discord, but it's on a centralized server, so there needs to be a great deal of caution with how much data is trusted to be available when people need it the most. If Discord goes down, we'll lose a great deal of information, such as game wikis, developer documentation, etc.
Izzy
Ember Heartshine