yea lots of forums are gone now. speaking only from this past year many have closed or been sold and renamed due to financial struggles to keep them going. what we may see as a free online forum, isnt so free for forum creators. most have to pay for their "domain" servers and software, especially if they want to expand and keep the site free for their members theres also ads and the cost of running ads and promoting the sites.

covid has shut down many peoples abilities to have the finances needed to keep an online forum going. this past year alone has tested people to unimaginable lengths financially. some have had to make the hard choice to close or sell parts or all of their sites.

we here at psych central aka my support forums that doc john was able to work with the buyers of psych central so that the forums could be separated from the whole psych central website so that we still have this forum to come to.

many forums are not that lucky. i know of at least 15-20 online forums that got sold and or closed down completely this past year of covid (corona virus shut downs around the world)