That is a very good point. We are seeing a golden age of “budget” lights. $15-$40 has a wide variety of high output (500-1000lumens) of your choice of tints and CRI. AND some great UI’s. Amazing.
Life has really gotten in the way the last several months. Have only had time for a few mods with the 519’s
I will be here until I die, I use reddit but really hate the format and some of the idiots that feel their BS 2 cents worth are needed on every thread.
I mean, that’s not really exclusive to reddit. I share the same feeling about some posters on BLF too. Youtube comments section as well. And very much so with the general populace on Facebook and social media (which is why I tend to avoid it).
But I think that’s more an ‘internet in general’ thing as it’s grown.
The browser doesn’t matter when BLF doesn’t have a mobile/responsive theme, so the text is small and hard to read on a phone. Having to zoom and scroll the page left to right is not user friendly.
Internet forums go in several stages.
1. first online forums- high level enthusiasts meet for the first time online after the dark ages of snail mail. It was a very exciting time, even the thought you were recieving messages on a screen from someone in another country was like omg:)
2. Average consumer turns up over the next 10 years, increases numbers. He is like the town settlers turning up after the frontiersman have paved the way
3. Tech stage. The number of members + advancements in tech reach a critical mass where there is new second wave of innovation. This usually also drives manufacturers who start paying attention to forums. Custom makers are the apex predator of this world 
4. The stupid stage. Fashion trends evolve which start to make hobbies chase weird goals. Flashlights its crazy lumens, 800 for a keychain light and “level of sun before dropping down, SOS, strobe, beacon and communicate with ET mothership light display” for any light more than 4” long. Guns, blades, camping gear, optics have gone down some strange corridors recently as well. 
5. Normal stage and or/decline
I hope BLF is not dying, but I had a similar thought several months ago. It appears the overall postings and responses has gone down.
For me, I only have so much time in my life for flashlight fun. Between work, family, and life stuff, I prefer to spend my time on BLF for the flashlight time I have. I signed up for CPF a long time ago, but never posted. Thought about signing up for reddit, but haven’t yet and don’t plan to.
I’ve spent hours and hours reading posts that I didn’t keep up with when I finally get around to whatever was so popular back when. I’m always impressed with all the knowledge and insight that the BLF members have! I’m not sure if I could get that anywhere else.
And I always look forward to updates with certain posts here on BLF, like What did you mod today? There are some posts that continue to grow and grow, which seems to be unique to BLF.
Unfortunately, that’s often the best answer, because no two people will have the same opinions, and the person asking really has to try both to see what he likes better.
6500K vs 5000K vs 4000K vs 2700K, you’ll have adherents if not fanatics about any of those CTs, and why that particular CT is “best”. High-CRI or don’t bother? High-CRI useless without a good R9 value? Some schmo could listen to all the popular opinions, yet hate the light he picks, or just like a different like better once he gets to compare.
That’s why clothes stores have dressing rooms, so you can compare clothes while wearing them without having to buy and return. Unfortunately, that’s not really an option with flashlights.
Okay, I’ll put my stank on the issue. 
Back in the day, flashlights kinda sucked. You had P60/P90/D25 drop-ins for those hosts, and early LEDs and drivers made them rather useful and used way less juice than their hotwire equivalents. Then came Roar Of Pelican and similar mods. Then drop-ins became The Thang, and people got into modding, because all you really needed was a soldering iron, the right parts, and thermal goop.
Old-timers like OL did some kickass mods on Mags, showing every step of the way, and that just inspired people to do similarly, even using the “human lathe” techniques, etc. Match-Mods turned Minimags to pretty awesome lights. Old Type-1 C8s and the S2s/S2+es let anyone do easy mods by just dicking with the pills instead of having to perform arthroscopic surgery on lights. People were modding like crazy, because you could get cheap hosts, pills/reflectors/drivers/stars, and roll yer own to your heart’s content.
Modders were the “shadetree mechanics” of the flashlight world.
But improvements were made. Integrated shelves on Type-2 C8s and other lights increased performance, but at the cost of making modding harder.
But then, revolutions in new lights gave us lights that could vomit out 1000lm with ease, whereas drop-ins had to break the sound barrier to get into quad-digits. But you were at the mercy of the manufacturer, because they’d glue the shiite out of everything, used retina-scorching CW emitters to wring out those few extra lemons, and just swapping the emitter, or trying to, could wreck the light. And mfrs were unresponsive to “enthusiasts” and wanted to cater to lumen-hounds and normies who just liked Big Numbers. Or worse, those who thought having strobes and SOS in the main cycle “added value” to the lights for zero cost.
But then we got into bed with Convoy, Sofirn, Wurkkos, and a few others, and could get the lights we wanted, without having to mod much if anything. Longpress for on/off was the norm, click-click-click to flick through the modes, ’til enough people started rearing up on their hind legs and howling for the reverse, which is exactly what happened. Boost converters for 6V/9V/higher LEDs came along. Pretty much every item in a wish-list was granted. Some even started using “enthusiast” UIs like andy1 and then andy2.
Point being, lights with sideswitches, sideswitches + tailswitches, plus onboard charging, etc., became the norm. You couldn’t just drop in a convenient 17mm or 20mm driver and be done with it. You had satellite boards for the sideswitches, charging circuits, etc. So lights were no longer moddable. UI? You couldn’t just load/buy muppydrv or whatever on a ’104C or anything, but had to reflash what was already there, if the µC was compatible.
No more shadetree mechanics, but needing scan-tools and mfr diagnostic codes and whatnot, well beyond what the average schmo was willing or able to do.
And no one even bothers to dedome LEDs anymore. No more discussions of heat- vs chemical-dedoming, or slicing, or whatnot. Now, it’s just swap for a 519, SST/SFT, whatever.
So now, modding is either out of reach of the average schmo, or no one wants to bother, or just no one wants to risk a light to get marginally better light.
Instead, we just harangue the mfrs for colors, finishes, materials. Someone wants Cu, someone else wants Ti, yet someone else wants SS, or brass, or…
Me? Yeah, I’m pretty much flashlighted out, unless something really good comes along. Everything else is just variations on a theme. Same light but in 21700 instead of 18650. Tailswitch + sideswitch vs just sideswitch. Blah blah blah.
I confess, I thought the WK30 was just a gimmick light, until I got one, and it became one of my all-time faves. The TS10, I initially poopooed because, “Who needs a triple in a 14500/AA light?”, until I had one in my grubby little hands. I couldn’t really care about überthrowers because most of what I do is close- to intermediate range, but I know they’re popular. But I don’t care in the slightest for “turbo” that lasts 4.75sec then drops down to 100lm immediately after. So something needs to really strike my fancy in order to get jazzed.
Soooooo, a lot of what made BLF what it is, was the old-timey modding threads, everything from OL-type mods, to dedoming discussions, how-tos as far as bettering thermal paths, optics, etc., even hacquing “moddable” lights that were simple enough to do. But todays lights are like modern cars, locked up behind CANbus interfaces vs discrete wires, not very moddable at all, where a simple change isn’t adding a switch and a few wires and relays, but having to entirely reprogram a body-control module or similar computer. Ie, forget it.
So today’s ideas of “modding” is what deep-carry clip will fit on a TS10, or superficial stuff like that, and no more “pencil tricks” to get rid of NMM, or sanding and hammering pennies to plug hollow shelves of SK98s. If we want light X to do something different, just buy light Y which pretty much does that already. Want a triple in an S2+, okay, you can get the spacers, optics, etc., and put it all together, hopefully… or you could just buy an E2L out of the box.
Oh, and let’s not forget that we used to have decent places to shop like BG and GB, getting loads of crap on the cheap, ’til they fizzled out. FT still has some awesome goodies, but they’re (as mentioned) good for modding older lights, not the newer crop of “unmoddables”.
We could always discuss politics, or the corovirus, or…
Nah... It got worse with the new owner J. A lot of manufacturers and vendors have already left their forum since last year.
Looking in the blf user deals dont see that much interesting stuff really… nothing unique or exciting that sticks out.
I dont buy new lights since some time most are storage queens anyway but if power goes out then i manage but otherwise no…
I do not think BLF is even close to “dead”… far from it in fact. I think there is a normal ebb & flow on any Forum.
I have never been to Reddit & do not plan to go.
As far as the BLF Format being, as someone said; “antiquated”…. Who says it is or who really cares if it may or may not be the “latest & greatest”???
It works well, is easy to us, is familiar, & more than gets the job done.
Sooooo, don’t buy the Coffin, the Headstone, & dig the grave for BLF just yet. It is not needed. 
BLF is suffering from the same problem virtually all unmoderated forums suffer from. There are a handful of users that try and control the forum. They feel they have a right to do so because of several reasons: because they have been members the longest, because they “think” they know the most, etc. They consistently shoot down every idea that they don’t agree with. This drives away new users with new ideas and we are then left with those know-it-all users that continue to control the forum.
It’s sad but true.
Is BLF dying, no.
I come here less often but for me that’s just because of my economical issue.
I was coming there less often because some personal problems, but now I am back into flashlights. I was wondering if BLF is dying, I hope it will last loong time
@Rexlion I should have been a bit clearer in my statement.
Essentially, the issue is that people here who are supposed to be open minded, be honest and truthful about the information they share, and generally properly learn from their mistakes.
The issue is that some of these people fail to be self-reflective or worse, tend to straight up share wrong and even dangerous information, or just behave in a way that is completely condescending.
Usually, posts with people like this replying in such a manner get posts locked, but I’m starting to believe we should get rid of the problem at the source: teach these people to behave, or if they don’t want to change, remove some of their privileges.
A new BLF 4x21700, XPH 70.2, USB, 4000k flashlight project would possibly excite the forum and attract new members. It will be a bit heavy for some. For others, it will function as a great work light or as a lamp replacement in dark rooms. These flashlights are often in the price range of 400-500 USD. Lowering the price tag to 120-150 USD should be possible. The question is if the right person to manage it exists right now.
I agree we could go with a new BLF light, maybe we need a poll with requirements
I agree, but not just one put in a shell by a manufacturer anf BLF lasered on the side, one designed from the ground up with the input of people on here like the lights of old……
A quad with different types/size leds maybe? , don’t think we’ve had one of those yet? Whatever it may be it needs to be affordable to everyone. Ideally sub $50
The issue is getting it all together, and I’m not sure there’s a team on here now who’d be up for it (it takes bucketloads of effort and time…. and patience)
It sounds like a plan!
My ideal flashlight would have throwy cool white LED, flood warm high CRI LED and a red light, customizable UI and 21700 cell
Same happened to nightvisionforumuk. Modding is dying as a hobby. China production significantly improved. Price dropped.
It was very fun to make something on your own and unique (your own night vision device or flashlight), and yes! Unlike CPF where you couldn’t learn much about modding skill BLF seemed like modding heaven to me. We have a whole lot of inspiring people here that are unselfishly sharing their knowledge and experience! You can always learn something new from each member here even if you are just regular Joe with 0 experience but with strong will to do something…
As some guys already pointed out here that there were old times when performance flashlights costed significant amount of $ and now we have all that(and more) for budget price almost everywhere.
But despite all that did not stopped me from lights modding. I had/have my own vision of light(hunting light) and there is no other light available on the market that can achieve same performance in same flashlight format.
I came to the point where one of the best engineers here designed and made my own driver series(according to my wish and demands) because I strongly believed in my flashlight philosophy and of course I have small group of friends/buyers that recognize that so that is pushing me forward…
So I am still dedoming, reflowing, centering, dremmeling, experimenting, messing thing up etc. I still live in “old” times with oldschool flashlight formats. As Simple As Possible, Maximum performance and reliability is my main moto when modding.
BLF will never die and I hope that owners or creators of this forum have long-term plan to make it even more interesting and fun for us.