Discord is great when you want real time conversation, but it exists parallel to a subreddit, not as a replacement.
To look forwards, you must look backwards, at new forum software such as NodeBB or Flarum. Specialist niche communities are already shifting in that direction, or have never left their old BBSes behind, but are due to welcome a resurgence of new members.
I still don't like it even for real time conversations. As they don't have threads, or any way to reply to a specific message, sometimes it's confusing to have 3 different conversations going on in the same channel
To look forwards, you must look backwards, at new forum software such as NodeBB or Flarum. Specialist niche communities are already shifting in that direction, or have never left their old BBSes behind, but are due to welcome a resurgence of new members.