From the first moment I first went online in 1996, forums were the main place to hang out. In fact the very first thing I did was join an online forum run by the Greek magazine "PC Master" so I could directly to my favourite game reviewers (for me it was Tsourinakis, for those old [...]
I'm on 3 active forums and 2 lemmies and 2 mastos and I just leave myself logged in. It's nothing like that. Somehow that's still a better user experience than discord