You could refresh the screen and several people would have posted in different subject titles? or even new posts appear while you were still typing a post?
That's the sad part. I remember in General Chat, you could make a post and if nobody replied, it was already pushed to the second page by the end of the day. Now, the posts stay on the first page for up to 1 month.
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 11-10-2025).]
Fiero's are not being picked up as an interest to younger people and a lot of us have been around the block a few times now.
There is also the polarization effect. Many people avoind differing perspectives and rather stay in a like minded non discussion box. I my self have veered away not from so much differing opinion but from vicious opinion. I want differing o[inion and perspective. Facebook tends to group everyone up.
Facebook is so much bigger and offers people the NONchoice algorithms of what kind of town square they reside.
Fiero's are not being picked up as an interest to younger people and a lot of us have been around the block a few times now.
That doesn't explain all the other dead forums that exist across almost any subject you can think of. I used to be on a bunch of formerly-busy forums, on a wide variety of subjects. Sports, music, photography, other car forums, model trains.... They're all dead, or nearly so. The "Photography On The Net" forum used to be enormous! Now it's shut down. I don't think it's because of young people not getting involved, it's because of young people going to Facebook (or Tiktok or Snapchat or Instagram or whatever it is they like now). Scroll back on any one of those forums and there's a HUGE dropoff after about 2010-2012 or so.
That doesn't explain all the other dead forums that exist across almost any subject you can think of. I used to be on a bunch of formerly-busy forums, on a wide variety of subjects. Sports, music, photography, other car forums, model trains.... They're all dead, or nearly so. The "Photography On The Net" forum used to be enormous! Now it's shut down. I don't think it's because of young people not getting involved, it's because of young people going to Facebook (or Tiktok or Snapchat or Instagram or whatever it is they like now). Scroll back on any one of those forums and there's a HUGE dropoff after about 2010-2012 or so.
Like I addressed
"Facebook is so much bigger and offers people the NONchoice algorithms of what kind of town square they reside."
It's something to do with the evolution of communication - Remember custom ringtones? much less of a "thing" now that most folks make less than ten phonecalls a week. Forums are ghost towns, even Discord - folks use the DMs and voice chat in Discord instead of the 'phone'. You can share images, videos, etc as you voice and text chat...
Facebook, Instagram, Threads,X/Twitter, its "easier" to do those on a phone than most forums...
I miss the world of 2010. even up to around 2015-16. 2020-2025 has been crap.
Originally posted by TheDigitalAlchemist: ... Facebook, Instagram, Threads,X/Twitter, its "easier" to do those on a phone than most forums...
Maybe I'm showing my age, but I mostly hate doing "internet stuff" on my phone, even though it's what all the cool kids are doing. I much prefer using a desktop.
But I also have grown to hate talking on the phone for more than a few minutes at a time. I generally text people to ask if they're busy, before I call and tie up their time.
Maybe I'm showing my age, but I mostly hate doing "internet stuff" on my phone, even though it's what all the cool kids are doing. I much prefer using a desktop.
But I also have grown to hate talking on the phone for more than a few minutes at a time. I generally text people to ask if they're busy, before I call and tie up their time.
This, I appreciate. To cut down on scams and sales calls, I have my phone set to only ring if the caller is in my contact list. If not, it goes to voice mail. It's amazing how few real spoken messages I get now.
That doesn't explain all the other dead forums that exist across almost any subject you can think of. I used to be on a bunch of formerly-busy forums, on a wide variety of subjects. Sports, music, photography, other car forums, model trains.... They're all dead, or nearly so. The "Photography On The Net" forum used to be enormous! Now it's shut down. I don't think it's because of young people not getting involved, it's because of young people going to Facebook (or Tiktok or Snapchat or Instagram or whatever it is they like now). Scroll back on any one of those forums and there's a HUGE dropoff after about 2010-2012 or so.
Reddit is killing online forums. You can find a Subreddit on just about any subject that you can find a forum on. With Reddit, you have one account which you use to visit all the subs. Yes, there is a Fiero Subreddit too.
The youth today are used to going to Reddit. They will post their questions there. Many if not most of them probably don't even know that there are forums that exist outside of Reddit. Reddit has an app while the vast majority of online forums do not. Most of the screen time people have today is on their phone.
This is not to say that I like Reddit. I don't like it at all. The rise of Reddit is what is killing all the other online forums.
Originally posted by Doug85GT: Reddit is killing online forums. You can find a Subreddit on just about any subject that you can find a forum on. With Reddit, you have one account which you use to visit all the subs. Yes, there is a Fiero Subreddit too.
I used to have a Reddit account, but I lost access when I lost access to one of my email accounts (the one I used for spam and other garbage). I haven't missed it terribly. But then I didn't realize there was a Fiero subreddit.
I found that most of the people there were of the "everything sucks and it's not my fault" persuasion. Probably due to the younger demographics, I'm guessing. But for whatever reason, it got really tiring.
I might try to recover my access, at some point. When I'm really bored.
[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 11-13-2025).]
Originally posted by Doug85GT: Reddit is killing online forums. You can find a Subreddit on just about any subject that you can find a forum on. With Reddit, you have one account which you use to visit all the subs. Yes, there is a Fiero Subreddit too.
.
I'm on about 3 different forums (other than PFF) that have never enjoyed more participation. One is a military veterans website and the other 2 are cattle related. I've been on all 3 for a number years and the military website has 2.5 million members with several thousand new members joining every 30-60 days. New threads started every 2-3 days, sometimes several in one day.
The number of visitors to PFF have dropped considerably. It's not a small drop, but it dropped by 1300%, 1400% even 1500%. 😋
Social media definitely played a role. When the Facebook groups started to grow, I saw some of that traffic shift away. But even then, the forum was still pretty busy and doing well enough for ads to cover the server costs.
What really changed things was the rise of AI. When ChatGPT 3.5 launched, the visitor stats fell off a cliff (no pun intended). Each new generation since has only accelerated the decline. Today we get maybe one-fifth of the traffic we had just two years ago. And unfortunately, ad revenue and donations have fallen right along with it.
That means the forum can no longer financially sustain itself on its own. To keep PFF online, I have to host additional websites on the server to help offset the costs.
I’m committed to keeping the forum alive, but the landscape today is very different from what it was during the height of its activity.
I can see that now. Google puts the AI answer right at the top. I put a question into google, "where is the turn signal flasher on a pontiac fiero". The AI surprisingly gave the right answer. PFF is the 3rd listing in the search with AI, and Facebook above it. In this case, a person looking for that answer would not bother looking any lower since the AI answered it.
This makes me think of a disturbing scenario. AI is gobbling up the clicks that used to go to web sites like PFF. It is going to kill off a large portion of the Internet. I know Wikipedia has complained and asked AI makers to stop training their models on Wikipedia as it is stealing clicks to Wikipedia too.
I can see that now. Google puts the AI answer right at the top. I put a question into google, "where is the turn signal flasher on a pontiac fiero". The AI surprisingly gave the right answer. PFF is the 3rd listing in the search with AI, and Facebook above it. In this case, a person looking for that answer would not bother looking any lower since the AI answered it.
This makes me think of a disturbing scenario. AI is gobbling up the clicks that used to go to web sites like PFF. It is going to kill off a large portion of the Internet. I know Wikipedia has complained and asked AI makers to stop training their models on Wikipedia as it is stealing clicks to Wikipedia too.
If the authors on wikipedia are using AI then isnt it just AI by proxy?
Maybe I'm showing my age, but I mostly hate doing "internet stuff" on my phone, even though it's what all the cool kids are doing. I much prefer using a desktop. <snip>
This! God yes..
Even my wife is now becoming a "phonie" (haha). I would find it hard to believe phone usage as such isn't screwing up a person's vision as they squint looking at their phone.
BTW, I'm old too...so you might be on to something with that.
[This message has been edited by MarkS (edited 11-17-2025).]
BTW, I'm old too...so you might be on to something with that.
That makes at least three of us then. I'll be 70 next month, and my vision is still excellent for anything beyond an arm's length away... but up close, I can't read small print without glasses. All my internet time is spent on the PC with a decent size monitor. My cell phone is basically used for security camera stuff (connected via WiFi), due to its Android (not Windows) software app.
Oh, and I still use a landline due to it's vastly superior audio quality.
[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 11-17-2025).]
But then I didn't realize there was a Fiero subreddit.
I'll be 70 next month, and my vision is still excellent for anything beyond an arm's length away... but up close, I can't read small print without glasses. All my internet time is spent on the PC with a decent size monitor. My cell phone is basically used for security camera stuff (connected via WiFi), due to its Android (not Windows) software app.
