Forums have been around since the internet was started. In fact, they are the reason why the internet was started - to allow institutions like universities to share ideas and information and collaborate with peers around the world. Sadly, social media has made them into dinosaurs and even the biggest of them out there are a fraction of the size of what they used to be. Even worse, any good information on most of them is either old and or obsolete (2015 or older) or just filled with the same stupid shit you can find on social media. A big part of this is because search engines changed the way they gather information and now focus more on pimping ads than looking for pertinent information. Back in the day, back when key words and then linked pages was king, you could do a google search and find all kinds of great information and most of it being on forums. It's how we were able to grow JK-Forum and a lot of this was because of the questions and answers and people discussing back and forth and or challenging what is being said or shown. Today, you just get BS ads, stupid videos, sponsored posts and just really bad information from social media whores and this is across the board, not just Jeep stuff. AI isn't helping at all either being that they just answer your question and based on what it has determined to be right. Any good information you find today is from years ago especially if it's on a forum and typically, it's on page 3 or 4 of your original search.
In a nutshell, I don't consider forums to be social media or at least, it never was in the past. While I'm sure it has become that on the corporate forums out there, I try really hard to keep this place a "community" as it should be.
Sorry for the long winded post LOL