100%. I think part of that is 15-25 years ago, to run a niche community required a very special combination:
- You had to love the subject
- You had to have the requisite knowledge to set the site up
- You had to have the time and dedication to maintain it
To an extent, it was enough to love a topic and simply be the caretaker of a board. That's how many communities took off, someone showed up to provide the place. The effort involved in that was the barrier to entry, but now that's gone.
Now you both have to provide the place, but also lead the parade, and how that works unfortunately isn't the same for everyone - you have to bumble through it and find what makes it work without letting go. I'm no success story, after 10 years of owning TTI I'm just now arriving at what I wanted it to be. I never got there with Paranormalis, or my own little projects before/after that.
The hardest thing for me was/is probably patience with myself.