Some good comments above about why the forum is dying. The other consideration is many pilots communicate these days with each other via messenger apps. Most of the aviation information I receive is from a group chat, whereas 10 years ago pprune would have the breaking news. Now it's common to hear about something interesting (incident or general aviation news), but it never sees the light of day on these forums. Many people also communicate visually these days via gifs, images, videos and memes. Pprune hasn't always been that user-friendly to upload that sort of content, and it is rarely seen.
When I joined over 15 years ago, a lot of the industry thought pprune was toxic. Now it's toxic and the content is largely irrelevant. I used to ask questions during flight like "oh, did you read about blah on pprune?", and the answers these days are usually "nah, it's all too negative" or "no, that forum is just a bunch of old white guys arguing". To be honest, they're correct and it shows the attitudes people outside this forum have about the site.
Ironically, part of the toxicity I mention is the back and forward I've got going with Xeptu. To answer your question about wanting to know the new school view, the biggest change over the last decade or so is attitudes in the flight deck and toward people in general. The captain isn't the be-all and end-all of the flight, it's the whole crew that needs to come together. FOs aren't just flap operators and FAs aren't just trolley dollies. There has been a push to improve crew resource management, and society's movement towards more respect for people in general. I've seen it in person and on these forums, where the older guys trash the opinions of the newer pilots. There's a lack of inclusion in general, and particularly in these forums. For example, the comments you see from time to time about female pilots or Alan's Joyce's sexual preferences (as examples) show that this forum isn't for everyone and outsiders aren't welcome. That's part of the reason why users and participation on this page are dropping.
Xeptu, your comments perfectly demonstrate the demeaning attitudes towards younger generations and why they don't want to be part of this forum:
so do share this new school learning you speak of, I'm beside myself in anticipation
P.S I've been hearing about this new school learning for about 40 years.
that was around before you were sucking on your mumma's teet. but just for laughs I do flip out the old CR3 now and again, it tells me everything I need to know faster than you can turn on your calculator.
You must have been a great guy to fly with, with attitudes like that. The sort of guy FOs would call in sick for, but you never knew because your thought you were perfect and the other pilot just politely smiles to get through their day. Or perhaps you were just having a bad day on pprune, I'll never know. I'll take a bet you were just having a bad day, but unfortunately there are a lot of old school attitudes still out there.
Overall, keeping the forum like it is (both tech and attitude-wise) will mean only an older demographic continues to participate. But if that's what the developers and mods want, that's fine. In the meantime this is what the majority of the industry thinks of most of the people posting on these forums:
