i think we may all be a little biased towards ff

i love the chat room here, i love the forum format, and i love the story library. for those three elements, i think it is the best. the pics and videos are just icing on the cake, for me.
i am also on feabie and grommr. it's a different format - they are like facebook without the algorithms. posts come and go, and only have a short half-life for comments. there is more shouting into the void (kind of like the shouts used to be here, but i see them less and less, which is fine). i don't find it as engaging because, unless you are keeping tabs on it every day, several times a day, things get stale and fall out of context, which is why i prefer the forum format where you can have an ongoing exchange over time. i use feabie a few times a week, and grommr only occasionally.
dimensions requires $ to join now? really? that will kill that site, i think. i don't even know if i have a login there anymore, i haven't used it in ages (well before the pandemic). but 10 years ago it was starting to get quieter and quieter as social media platforms made forums look old fashioned, and less phone-friendly. when the site became *just* a forum and got rid of the rest of the site, that killed a lot of the interest, i think.
i have made friends on ff, feabie, and dimensions that i have gotten to know over decades now, visited in person, and care about a great deal. i think each format has its weaknesses and strengths, and people will find their preferences. i see a lot of people here, and elsewhere, complain about "other users" and "everyone just wants..." [fill in the blank] - and when i look at the profiles, posts, interactions, etc. of the people complaining, it is obvious that they have made little effort to make meaningful connections. they either expect others to do all the work ("i am not going to fill out this profile, just ask me!" why would anyone bother???) or they only spend their effort projecting their own fantasies on everyone else.
i hope ff will run for decades to come!