So what?
The viewpoint of this guy (presumed he is male) is not wrong, only somewhat extreme. Likes-hunting and influencing are developments made possible by social media. Some people get addicted to that, others see it as a kind of danger and stay away from it. Both have good reasons respectively. I think, you won't get him to participate in your forum.
Btw. the topic does not match the essence of your text properly.
I think you got the wrong idea about what the Topic is here.
It's not about building up a forum and taking advantage on free assistance and free plugins as years ago (why that changed is another topic).
It's about having a running forum or starting one, and attrakting users to fill it with activity.
I know (and am part of) more than enough existing forums that offer mutural help and assistance regarding the forum topic, at no cost for the public. Those still existing forums continue to practice that. What's mostly gone in the forums I know, is the wide range of offtopic smalltak that existed besides the topic areas. That has definitely shifted to social media.
Sounds, you still want to give up the alternative lifestyle topic?
Hmmm, starting up a new forum these days is much more time comsuming than 10 years earlier. First, to find such a niche topic that by-the-way should attract you too to lead that forum. Then, to check it up against the laws of your country (especially sexually content could be an issue). Then, to find users who are not already satisfied with existing contents. And finally, hoping that this will flourish. All against Social Media and maybe existing contents on similar topics (in public or in closed circles).
What I mean: killing old content is done very quickly. Building and rising new content in classic forum formats on the other side is very hard - if it ever succeeds. To run a forum simply because it must be a forum, ist not really the right starting point.
A forum, especially if it looks back to more than a decade of content gathering, is a pool of information stored therein. To the contrary of FB and the like, informations can be found in a forum at any time easily. The real value of a forum these days therefor lies in that storage. Not the communication and diskussion on the topics. That has shiftet to other real-time social media.
I say: keep it online. For reasons of costs, maybe switch back to a cheaper server or to a webspace. Those who are searching for informations, will find it and read in it as they did in the old days using a library filled with real books.
(My own little forum shares this fate. And I don't have the heart to wipe out all it's content)
