Discourse exists and is free to self-host and open source. Compared to classic forum software (like most *bb variants) it is a pleasure to use and feels not like a remnant of a lost age.
The (only?) downside is the similar name to Discord, but that’s not them to blame, because they had their name first.
That is really a missing part of this whole thing. I get that I could build something myself, but I don’t want to have the hassle of doing it and keeping it working all the time (because I am able to build it, but not on a “works perfectly all the time” level). I really hope that sometime in the future there is a standard for smart speakers (and screens maybe) that allows me to add them to my cloud service of choice.