Dandello wrote yesterday at 12:09pm:

I hope you'll reconsider shuttering your forums, but I can certainly empathize with that sentiment.

After almost 22 years of operation, the busiest, and most popular YaBB 2.4 forum that I operated finally stopped working in December 2023 due to a "500 Internal Server Error" that was generated when it could no longer run on a newly installed, and updated version of Perl. I had been expecting that to happen for some time.

The thing is, I really only created that particular forum to better manage updates to a popular site that's been operating since 1997. The public chat part of that YaBB 2.4 forum was simply a nice benefit that wasn't really needed, so I didn't move on to another forum software.

As I'm guessing you already know quite well, shortly after the release of YaBB 1.0, YaBB's development team broke apart to create a second program called YaBB SE 1, which was released on November 12, 2001.

Subsequently, though, the development and support team for YaBB SE was shut down in March 2004 with hundreds of communities in operation. That's when those YaBB developers joined the SMF project. A converter was also developed to convert YaBB SE to SMF (Simple Machines Forum).

Even though I decided not to move on to another forum software, as an experiment I installed both a SMF forum, and a phpBB forum. I prefer the phpBB forum software.

Like Derek more or less pointed out, Facebook and other social networking services effectively took the place of chat forums like Yabb a long time ago, which is why I decided not to utilize either a SMF or phpBB forum for any of the websites that I still operate. The forums I have online are simply experimental.

In any case, YaBB's development fascinated me, even to its end. Had I the knowledge that you have when it comes to coding, I very likely would have continued YaBB's development in some fashion as its original software (and mission) allowed, and encouraged.

After all, despite what's taken over when it comes to social media, I still believe that the structure of chat forums are superior to the kind of social media that's popular today.

What I'm reminded of is videotape technology of which VHS became the most popular media format for VCRs even though Betamax was superior. Of course, the last remaining VCR manufacturer ceased production in 2016, so even that battle in the history of technology is no longer relevant.

If you do make the final decision to shutter your forums, your legacy of keeping YaBB alive longer than it otherwise would have been kept alive is a legacy of which to be proud. Kudos to all that you did. 

Discord has taken over the niche on tech related items (games, etc.).

And YaBB is pretty much dead. After the original YaBB site went dark, this became the only YaBB support site. Not to harp on personal difficulties but neither my current computer, nor my health could keep going with YaBB.

In fact, come the new year, I expect I will be mothballing all my own YaBB forums due to lack of visitors.