They serve different purposes. You might not be able to find even one person in your local area who shares your specific niche interests, but on the internet you can find hundreds or thousands of the most engaged and knowledgeable people on any given topic. Online forums also serve as a repository of knowledge that you can search through and learn from.

THIS!

most of the political/activist/policy-driven discussions on reddit have no impact on the real world and lots of energy is just dissipated into typing that goes in to a db and no further

case in point...most local subs are mobilized against NIMBYs...but NIMBYs tend to voice their concerns at City Council meetings (where it matters), not on the internet...guess who wins?

reddit just takes the energy out of activism and dissipates it

While I agree, I certainly don't go on reddit expecting political change. It's at best good for awareness, but you can't be stuck on that first step.

To talk about media, hobbies, and maybe even to foster professional skills. I feel those were the most valuable communities.

I agree with everything you say, except this being the right prompt to talk about that. It's not really answering the question OP is asking.

by "this" i meant all the kerfuffle around Reddit's API rates

You can't have in-person conversations when the community is supporting someone with a rare disease. However, many conversations don't fit into this class, and some would be better happening in-person. All of these things are true, so you still need Reddit alternatives.

Niche hobbies are not that easy to find local groups for.

I've spent 6 years trying to find a proper reddit alternative and coincidentally 6 years in my local area trying to find ANY local friend group for interests I have.

I have better luck online. Heck, I had better luck in mobile game guilds. And the pandemic honestly made things even worse, worse in a way that has longer term effects than I ever predicted.

I can have a whole multi-post rant about the fall of social hubs, the futility of Meetups, and simply the difficulties of a late 20's male trying to find a friend group their age, but that's probably too tangential for a post asking about online communities.

I feel for you man. I live in Brooklyn and I can meet all the weirdos I want here (though the fact that we're so spread out makes having a 'community' hard sometimes). So I get why Reddit and its ilk would seem like the best available option. But if at all possible, I think moving to where your people are is going to scratch the itch more holistically.

This person has been thinking hard about this: https://twitter.com/Prigoose, https://prigoose.substack.com/

That's the strange thing of it all. I'm not necessarily in Los Angeles proper, but I'm in a suburb and am fine driving downtown. There theoretically shouldn't be a better place to find some 20's people interested in various geek/tech content. I'm sure the groups are there, but I'm not sure where to look.

The only better place in theory is up north in Silicon Valley. But I'm not sure if I want to move and drastically up my cost of living in the process.

LA is a stranger place than it seems if you haven’t lived elsewhere as an adult. SV is definitely not the only better place, though the candidates may be similarly expensive due to the density you need (Boston, NYC, etc.).

I'm also in LA ~ can connect you with some interesting folks!

Agreed that there's not great resources for local discovery, beyond Discord groups and Meetups (which sort of died during the pandemic)

Amen. I stopped using Reddit when their new website got released a few years back. Not for any ideological reason, just because their new anti-user patterns killed my enjoyment there.

I've never been happier having stopped using it!