
This is a graph that shows the amount of activity Bay12 has had throught its recorded history. 2008 and 2024 are excluded due to their incomplete records. The graph specifically counts the amount of posts made each year.
As you can see, with its current momentum, Bay12 may optimistically survive past the end of 2020's before succumbing to its demise. This assumes that at each year onwards, 1/5 of the post amount will be lost.
We posted approximately 80.000 times in 2023, so this scenario assumes that we will post around 65.000 times this year, and around 50.000 in 2025. We will get to 2030 with 20.000 posts, and finish it with 16.000.
Assuming (VERY optimistically, mind you) that this downward glide trend continues with a small negative error margin to round it all up, and a count below 100 a year or one post once every 3-4 days is when the forum dies, then this scenario will see the forum fizzle out in the distant year of 2045. That would mean a 43-and-a-half-year lifespan, extremely long and constituting more than 2/5 of a century. I would be like, a 42 year old geezer, with a life, and husband, and 3 kids. Assuming I am still going to be here by that time, then my only other companion will be Jifodus, who will say absolutely nothing and then proceed to outlast me to become the actual last user in Bay12.
Yeaaaaaaaaaaa... It is much more likely that our doom will come earlier, sometime between 2028-2030. Since the decline is not exactly uniform, and collapse tends to beget more of itself, I say we will see the end of this decade, but not much after that. Bay12 will be 28.5 years old by then, almost 3 entire decades in age, and maybe even in the same exact shape as of now.
Just speculating. It is fun to do. Time will show us what happens.