Well, first there was usenet and fidonet. Then there was IRC. Then there was CompuServe forums, Prodigy hubs and AOL communities.
Then there was many many web forums.
Then there was Slashdot.
THEN we got digg, then reddit, then Lemmy, then kbin, then Threads.
And the amazing thing is that other than Fidonet, AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy, all thise services still exist today. I still get a daily email from Digg.