But it's shallow and self-aggrandizing, because I comment, hit post, and... never look at it again because what if I'm actually held to account on what I just said?
But also, nobody's ever read a comment and thought "whoa I need to get to know this person better!" and reached out - but that's normal because I never read a comment and have that thought.
Publishing my opinion is great, that's why so many people have blogs and twitter and such as well, it's their own soapbox. But conversing over comments, not so much.
HN's issue is that you don't get notifications if someone replied to you. Someone may reply to you, you may reply to them again, but who knows if they read it and reply again? Reddit's issue is that I ignore notifications.
Forums were great 15-20 years ago, I'd go there several times a day, go through ALL the unread posts, read everything, reply, and there would be actual conversations going. But also usually not one to one, so you'd rarely stand alone in any discussions.
But for me, that time has passed. I haven't been to these forums in ages (and I run them, lol), I just don't read long posts, especially from people I know who write long posts, the personal conversations have mostly died out and moved to Discord or private chats - because over time, people shared too much, were too trusting, and got hurt because of it.
TL;DR, I'm still on the internet but it's a husk of the mid 2000s - or at least my experience thereof is, the generation following will probably say the same in 20 years time. It matters more what time in your life you are than the online communities themselves I think.