In 2016, when I first heard about Bitcoin.
When I started reading and researching about bitcoin and its technology
In 2016, there was less noises from altcoins and altcoin forums like now. If you did your research with Internet and search engines, Bitcointalk forum would appear at top of Google Search.
It is myth if you searched on Internet and did not see Bitcointalk in the list.
You could find that site
https://bitcoin.org/en/ and get the link to Bitcointalk at
https://bitcoin.org/en/communityForums
BitcoinTalk Forum
Reddit's Bitcoin Community
Bitcoin StackExchange (Q&A)
You're right, but some people might be too lazy to do some quick searches. But it's possible that the OP wasn't too interested in the discussion about bitcoin because he seemed so focused on his investment plan. After all, not everyone who invests in bitcoin uses the bitcointalk discussion forum, but they can discuss elsewhere online too.
We know bitcointalk isn't the only discussion forum about bitcoin, so it's still plausible that some of them didn't discover this forum in the early days. Unless they recommended another user here after some time.