> You used to be able to find forums and similar for almost anything;

When google removed the option to search discussion boards I knew the internet was changing and the changes were going to be bad. Google discussion search was the most powerful tool to find real world information. You could put in the model number of some product you knew nothing about (e.g. a camera or boat motor) and discussion search results would reveal many different forum threads where professionals and aficionados had discussed the product in detail; those same forums were already hard to find and a search for "boat motor forum" wouldn't necessarily bring you to the same forums and even if so, requires many extra steps to arrive at the same thread.

I have a very few left (like the one linked above) that I consider very precious to me. The biggest loss has been car forums for me - they still exist but the posting volume is way down

And all the Photobucket images that are now gone, because the person hosting the forum was too cheap to self-host. RIP amazing, archived, sorted, searchable information.