Their online community is not the collection of software and hardware components that allow the computer system to run-it is the people and the interaction between them that creates their world, and the essential reason why BBSs will always remain a valuable segment of the online world. The second most common fallacy I hear about the future is that the major online services will take over the BBS world. Again, BBSs will die out, and everyone will become a part of these larger online cities. This would defy human nature as we know it. Everyone cannot and will not live in the same city, or for that matter, a dozen cities.
People tend to congregate in smaller groups that they can call communities.
The larger online services, like all large municipalities, tend to be impersonal and somewhat generic. Realities of the online world also support this conclusion. Although there has been a meteoric rise in the number of major online service users, there has been a comparable rise in BBS membership.