> I don't think groups is communities. This is true. > Real communities are outside. Arguably they are also on many platforms, such as Reddit and Discord primarily. My Canadian friend's response: "Yeah just go outside and visit Alberta to hang out with my friend" (I'm in the US, far from Canada) Threaded imageboards routinely facilitate authentic conversations. Even here we can find authenticity. The problem is scaling "segregated" communities. Is it possible? How do federate a relay network? But in a meaningful way. We can all dance around the conceptuals but I downloaded a new game last week, a small indie game, and I immediately visited reddit for the first time in months because that is the go-to place for new communities. There were plenty of players there who were happy to discuss the game. No spam, no porn, just authentic conversations. I don't mean to undermine the problem of scaling this architecture, it's just the only reason I am here in the first place (going on 4 years). I run relays for this reason. I built a client for this reason. I still use Reddit and Lemmy for this reason. The demand is very real. Reddit is a shit company but an incredibly meaningful platform. I use Lemmy more than anything because it delivers the same experience at the tradeoff of lower activity and quality. Pubky argued against it on the basis of having to make changes to their architecture (whooptie doo). I don't use Pubky for this reason.