Most likely because old buildings are expensive to maintain, expensive to heat, must be refitted for modern lights or communication or have asbestos or lead pipes or don’t comply with modern building standards, such as accessibility.
There is this old cinema from the 1920s in my town that went out of business in the 1990s. Nobody goes to the cinema anymore to fill the 300 seats, it’s a 20min walk away from residential areas and there is no parking nearby. On top of that it needs 30 years of maintenance. Nobody has a good business plan for this building.
I agree, but I think it’s easier for the community owners to get user to join their discord channel with one click, than having users to sign up for a forum, create an account, confirm the email, post in the right subforum and also deal with spam and forum maintenance. It’s seen as less hassle for admins and users