It's kind of a chicken and egg scenario where we want knowledgeable users to write good content but they won't join because there's not a lot of good content to begin with.
I always thought that totse-esque sites should offer some kind of freely available service in addition to hosting a community. Something simple and privacy / free speech related that's useful to the every-day user. A privnote clone, a simple proxy, or even something bitcoin related. Give lots of like-minded people a reason to use the site and they'll discover the community later.
You do have a point. Of course the text-file days are gone as the internet and technology have evolved, but I'd say the majority of us found totse through the text-files and then the community forums at a later time. I spent months on the text-files before finding the forum, and at that point it was the original service of the text-files that kept us bonded, qualified our thinking, and really formed our foundation.
Like you guys said, that type of service is hard to match.
Food for thought: all-text services are on their way out. Sure, we like to discuss with text, but as evident even by the new style of posting that spits in the eyes of our more seasoned posters who remember the days of a well- formed and complete thought, it's all about quick and flashy. Images. Videos. That's why the more popular up-and-coming sites all share media with peers, and text is an afterthought. News sites are integrating more and more video. It could be the declining attention spans of the newer generations, or perhaps the myriad of vices vying for our focus and attention, but times are changing. And of course, the only constant thing is change.
I'm not sure where to go from there, but one day we may want to consider what our primary service needs to be for a sustainable future.
