>Maybe ask what kind of site the fans of your thing are into?
I don't know if I get your question correctly, but if you are asking what kind of site the people in the already-existing niche would be using, then probably a forum, since they are used to Reddit and I assume that is the closest to that. On the other hand, I would guess more people would start using it, when no account is needed.
>>3
>Couldn't really say without knowing what your interest is and what its community is like.
The whole shtick would a board for discussing collapse of civilization, mostly apolitical though, not unlike r/collapse, but maybe with a bit more quality-control (that's probably bold of me wanting quality when I probably won't get any traffic at all). Outside of Reddit there is practically no place to discuss this besides some quality-less, probably dead, and uninteresting Telegram groups and Discord chatrooms.
>>4
I also assume it's more time consuming to maintain the software for a forum as opposed to a textboard. I'd rather maintain Kareha than phpBB.