https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/29/online-forums-musical-culture-messageboards-social-media-music-essay

In the first of a new monthly essay series on music, we explore how messageboards became a meeting point for 00s music fans – and how, after being killed off by social media, they might rise again

Back in the 00s, I ran an online music forum, most of whose regulars were bored office workers. Once, we made a sketchy calculation, based on rates of posting and average wages, of how much the site had cost the UK economy in terms of time wasted arguing about Daft Punk, Outkast, Britney and more. We estimated that around £1.7m of productivity had been gloriously frittered.