I'll bite. It's late and I just spilled coffee all over myself and the table, but I'll take a moment and try to whip up a thought on the subject.
This is not another run-of-the-mill "nobody is posting on 4-ch, the sky is falling!" narrative that we've seen countless times before and in fact still suffer through every other week. Nor is it me just idly pining for the old days, throwing it out there for others to passively agree with (though what more can we do?). You reveal your unfamiliarity with this website >>9, by asking for examples, as it's obvious to us what I'm speaking of. It's nothing arcane, and if you've been around, you'll see it too.
Here's something. Though it's only a part of the puzzle, I could count on one hand the websites in the chaniverse that have survived as long as 4-ch. I've seen the rise and fall of websites large and small. What really got me thinking about this was the demise of iichan/Wakachan last year. It's happened before but it never left me with such a bleak feeling. It was one of the few places that still clearly resembled "our hangout" - a comparatively undiluted culture not that far removed from 4-ch's new imageboard. Which to me feels a little too stale, a little too haphazard, though a welcome diversion. Only a few users have stayed on with the intention of continuing the site and what was already an extremely slow pace has trickled down into nothingness. We've seen the same here. We've seen the same in other places. We've seen 4chan finally succumb to the cancer almost completely. I know next to nothing about 8ch as it's long after my time and have only heard about it from people like the ones posting in this thread. To be honest, I think some of us have really struggled to define why we post here.
Anyway, before the current age of the internet, there was always an inherent belief that we were "going somehwere" and while some of us were content to just take the ride, it now feels.... anticlimactic? The internet never owed us anything, but now there's not only no destination to speak of, but a denial that there ever was one to begin with! The current culture that now dominates HATES people like us and marginalizes and ignores those who made the internet great. The quiet type. The ones likely to value anonymous discussion and expect nothing in return except perhaps a knowing glance, a shared joke. The unmistakable pleasure one gets at knowing there was someone else out there that actually knows what the fuck you're talking about.
It's the feeling of making it to our once distant destination and reflecting on both how beautiful it's been and how ultimately meaningless it was. A bit transcendent, a bit sad, but mostly pondering HOW WE GET BACK. I want that feeling again. I'm like a junkie that's been told they don't make my drug anymore.
Now I'll step out for the night and light up a smoke.