I've been thinking lately how nice it was when the Internet had lots of phpBB-like forums spread around. Each one ran by a different server with it's own rules. None of them required your ID or phone number to join. No one really knew who anyone else was in real life. If you got tired of the people one forum you had several similar forums on different sites you could go to. It was fun seeing the kinds of things people would share in that environment. Everyone had the power to be seen, heard and disregarded in a short span of time.

I think of these things like they only exist in the past but I'm sure these places are still around only I don't go to them as much now. Probably because all the useful stuff these days exist in mainly reddit and the stackexchanges.

I too miss the days of phpBB an IPB forums. Circle.so has come the closest to replicating some of that interface / vibe, but as expected, their pricing has crept up beyond a reasonable point for small projects / communities. The answer seems to be something self hosted.