Old school forums are far from non-existent. They are simply not money makers, and typically focused on specialized topics. They still exist in large numbers.
One of the biggest shifts that has hurt the visibility of forums these days is not in everything becoming gamified with internet points, or "robotized" with preference-oriented content.
IMO it's actually our societal inability to pay attention to one topic for more than a few minutes at a time. We've become so well trained by the constant drip feed of randomized content, and the chase-the-rabbit research methodology of wikipedia, that when you encounter a forum in your search results, you probably didn't even consciously realize it because you skimmed it for the content you were looking for and moved on.
One of the biggest shifts that has hurt the visibility of forums these days is not in everything becoming gamified with internet points, or "robotized" with preference-oriented content.
IMO it's actually our societal inability to pay attention to one topic for more than a few minutes at a time. We've become so well trained by the constant drip feed of randomized content, and the chase-the-rabbit research methodology of wikipedia, that when you encounter a forum in your search results, you probably didn't even consciously realize it because you skimmed it for the content you were looking for and moved on.