Idk man, there were real communities where folks knew each other back then. There’s very little of that anymore because moderating those subs is a thankless full time job and the rest got massive. /r/CripplingAlcoholism is a good example - back around 2010 it was a close-knit group of drunks, by 2018 or so it was just a swamp.

/r/CenturyClub and the related subs were some of the best places on the internet back ~15 years ago. I deleted my old account that was in it ages ago and haven’t bothered rejoining since I passed the threshold, but even what, 8 years ago when I did that it was already way different.

Game subreddits went way downhill, too.

The overall quality of the site is much worse than it used to be.