How many people in rural America are going to be familiar with Discourse? And if the end goal is to have a discussion forum and you are trying to meet the needs of the people, why would they care about it being self hosted and what happens when the original poster gets board?

This is like the hobbyist version of resume driven development.

But the better question is, what is the purpose of getting off of Facebook? Are the users asking for it?

Especially now that Zuck has kissed the ring, conservatives (ie rural small town folks) are not trying to flee Facebook now if they ever were.