People have been calling for the death of new threads ever since the PC became a popular way to communicate online. Despite the rise of PC's as capable communication machines, the new thread market persevered. Now the same thing is happening again with the rise of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
But it seems everyone is missing a rather large point:New threads have always been niche threads. (This is especially true when talking about NWR)
The only threads to ever get over 100 million replies were the Sony Getting Hit Hard Lately and the YouTube thead. Now everyone thinks that if a new thread get less replies than that, it's considered a failure. They'll use that excuse to say "well there is no need for new threads anymore, they can't even get more replies than the Sony thread." Which is, of course, a very strange proposition. Since when did "100 million replies" become the standard for success? Most threads barely get over 60 million, yet they were still considered successful.
And now we come to smartphones... A phone is a necessity in today's world; everyone has one. That's why they get more message board support. Apple cracked open a huge window of opportunity for thread creators and trolls, with the invention of the iPhone and App Store. Now everyone is rushing to capture that market. We've since seen competition from Google and Microsoft, making the mobile message board market even bigger. But eventually that bubble might burst. Oversaturation of the market will cause people to be overwhelmed with the amount of choices available (too many threads, not enough time to reply to them).
Mobile message board apps offer a nice, quick diversion for people living a hectic lifestyle, but the apps will never match the complexity of making forty new threads in front of a large TV screen. For one thing, these mobile devices don't have any buttons. Now I know some will say "but then developers can customize their own button layouts", which is good. But then there's a lack of tactile input, which is essential for certain keystrokes (spacebar, shift, alt, number keys, etc.).
As for the actual "new threads vs not making new threads" debate, it's rather pointless to argue about it. We're comparing an old thread (which pretty much everyone needs these days), to a completely new thread (which is essentially a toy). As I stated above, new threads have always been niche threads.
People could use that same argument for the "PC vs console" debate.
Why buy a game console when PC's can do all that and more?
Yet here we are, PC's and console coexisting peacefully. Why can't new threads and old threads also coexist?
Topic: New threads are not irrelevant. Here's why... (Read 3754 times)
