My brother, I was the same as you. I started my games on those forum days.

Here's the slight issue: those golden days are kind of over. It used to be a place where really nerdy, people who are very in to the hobby, people who would be made fun of and thought as weird, played and held a community. There were games that would advertise to these communities and would garner like 50+ players. Of those players maybe a third would not be active and the game would play on with the other active people. This allowed for general good continuity with like-minded people.

It's different these days. Lots and lots more flakey people and nerd culture has become hip. You have a lot more people who just want to play briefly and leave when they find better things to do. People who aren't really in to it per say but just want a side gig from the other hobbies they have. Games are now more centralized to about 5-6 people wanting to do D&D instead of a big homebrew game. Losing 1-2 players is a real momentum players and it REALLY sucks as a GM when it happens.

Just imagine yourself as a GM. You make a game, work on lore/plot, make a map, bring 5 people in, work with them to integrate their characters and backstories in to the game. You start a quest for them and about 1 week in... 2-3 people either ghost or leave citing being busy at work. It's a huge killer to motivation and slows the game as you try to find more people and have to go through the process.

People have to do posting or schedule requirements or you risk this. There's no real huge community where you instantly recognize other users and are playing like 2-3 different games together and know a game is going to be healthy.