Communities are like that awesome friend group.
It starts amazing but then you start adding randoms and then it kind of drifts.
You had a perfectly good thing going on until you started adding more and more people to it and things started breaking.
Some friend groups end here. Some manage to get back to its core members. But even then it's hard to call it a “community”.
I've ran and been part of a few communities. And some things I've found are
People stand in line to talk to the “main” guy. So it's more of a turn-based dynamic than a “rising tide lifts all boats” dynamic.
Some connections are made. But these are rarely more than 2 people. Which I don't think can be called a community.
People become stingy with information because it's very likely that the people within that community are competitors. Why share things that gives the competition an advantage for the sake of “adding value”?
Then there's the AI argument.
AI has made people a lot more lonely. Instead of asking things to a friend group, people would rather ask things to an AI that knows it all. It's faster. There's no social dynamics. And it can even build it for you.
Another argument is “gated info”. That you join communities because it's got information that you can't find anywhere else.
I think that argument is short-sighted.
People inside the community have a huge incentive to share private things outside of it for their own benefit.
Even the owner does. Since it raises the perceived value of the community to an outsider.
So the fact that the info is gated today doesn't mean that it will be gated tomorrow.
The only communities I see thriving are those that have legit filters like wealth. The real value of those communities is in who doesn't get in. (Example: Country clubs and luxury gyms).
But again, the incentive of the community owner is often money. And they will objectively make more money if they open up the doors to more people.