I am probably not the first person to notice 
this but I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about it in these terms before.
As we all know, the internet sucks compared to 10 years ago. Specifically, search engines and easily accessible information sources are much less useful than they were in the past. As many have pointed out (and as I like to bring up whenever relevant) a lot of the blame lies with SEOshit, and another sizeable chunk of the blame lies with the groomercordification of communities. 
In case you've missed all of my own and others' rants on the topic, what I mean by groomercordification is the currentyear+9 tendency of online communities to use groomercord instead of a forum or subreddit or wiki for everything from community organization (meh) to information archiving (very, very bad).
To use an example most of you incels should be able to relate to, take vidya gayme mods. A decade ago, developers of a mod would use either a legacy self-hosted forum, self-hosted wiki (usually in combination with a forum), or a dedicated subreddit to share general information with each other and with their users. Information such as installation instructions, community feature requests, compatibility details, current status of codecel efforts, details of codecel efforts (I believe the codecels call this "documentation"), et cetera.
In CY+9, it is increasingly common for vidya mods to have no web presence other than a splash page referring you to their groomercord. Want installation instructions? Refer to groomercord. Want to request a feature? Refer to groomercord. Want extremely basic FAQ-tier tech support? Refer to groomercord. Want to know some details about the code in order to diagnose compatibility problems with other mods? Refer to groomercord. Want to ask other users an extremely basic question about the mod? Refer to groomercord.
This phenomenon has taken over all kinds of communities, but modding is an example where I've personally observed it multiple times over. A lot of the types of information I listed above are going to be frequently requested by users. In the old times, we had these things called "installation instructions" and "FAQs" on static web pages. The best thing about these static web pages was that they could be retrieved on demand, at any time, with no action required by anybody but the requestor, by entering keywords into a search engine. Similarly, we had these things called "forums" where you could check whether somebody had already asked the question you're about to ask by searching for it before asking.
Finally, my novel (to me) point: why are we backsliding to a state where basic information is gated behind a login wall and mandatory interaction with other people?
One more sidestep: chatbots.
Chatbots are an innovative way for companies to outsource their tech support to a computer/not have to pay for call centers. They're pretty good for 90% of tech support problems, since 90% of tech support problems can be solved by walking the tech-illiterate customer through the process of turning their device off and back on again. Having a robot do this instead of a person saves a looooot of money. More recently chatbots have taken on a new meaning as the most common frontend for AIs, probably because they're easy to interface with even if you're tech illiterate. Can you see where I'm going with this?
The groomercordification of everything, and especially of things that should not be groomercordified (anything that would traditionally be on a wiki), is just another result of the normie takeover of the internet. A loooooot of people (apparently the vast majority) strongly prefer to consume technical information in a conversation style versus reading a document, so the state of things has drifted towards enforced conversation-style information consumption. This has had horrible consequences for the general availability of information that should logically be retrievable on demand from a static source.
Yes, this is rather galaxybrained and obvious in hindsight.
Current hyperfixation: 
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I've heard this before (maybe from you) and I agree with it
Groomercord is a black hole and there's no way to get the useful information out of it
This is really what did make reddit great originally.. you could search for that stuff and only ask if you couldn't just find it.
And obviously wikis and forums.
Groomercord is going full circle back to the old days where people used IRC for this stuff. It's regressive.
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I've complained about it a bunch in the past but never put together why it was happening for whatever reason, probably because it seems like such a strict downgrade from my pov.
I wonder if you could measure the economic impact of this. Common sense groomercord regulation 2024
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Realistically it's probably a mixture of:
1. The weed dealer who will only sell to people who hang out with him phenomena
2. Wannabe janny types begging anyone with a modicum of clout to make a server (if you don't they'll make it without you)
3. Hyper online weirdos increasingly turning against reddit and large wiki sites for not being socialist enough or whatever
4. Everyone else is doing it, I will too
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I think part of it is convenience or laziness. Maybe it's easier to set up a Groomercord server than a dedicated wiki or forum, and it also only requires one account rather than 10 different accounts on 10 different websites. That's the same reason Reddit is popular. And as
@Cyberstalker mentioned, it's easier to "contribute" to Groomercord than a wiki, for example. I think it's mostly dedicated fans who edit wikis, while casuals can just write a few messages or ask questions and then leave. The reasons I wrote here don't explain why they choose Groomercord instead of a forum like Reddit though.
From my experience using Reddit and similar sites like rDrama, a lot of questions simply don't get responses. I don't know if it's the same for Groomercord or regular forums. Does the linear "conversation" format of Groomercord make it more likely for someone to respond?
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