It’s been more than 13 years since @codinghorror first announced Discourse, with this claim:
Today we announce the launch of Discourse, a next-generation, 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.
If we assume that this is an evergreen statement, and we’re continuing to build a discussion platform for the next decade of the internet, what do you imagine that looking like?
Consider what the world looked like in 2013 and how much changed between then and 2023[1]. Which of those changes were we really anticipating when starting this project in 2013 and which were complete surprises or came much earlier than expected?
Looking ahead 10 years, what kinds of things can we imagine being true that are not true today? How much should we “expect the unexpected”? How do you expect to be interacting with other people online 10 years from now?
What role to you hope a project like Discourse to be playing in the world of online communication 10 years from now? What are you most worried about happening to Discourse that we might be able to avoid if we work together to shape our own destiny?
Not sure what to reference here to help ground us all, but here’s one link maybe worth skimming through: Timeline of social media - Wikipedia ↩︎