This is a story about my web3 thoughts, circa 2018… https://mangocats.com/ao/IslandLife.html

Smaller communities don’t get targeted for commercial exploitation. But, then, something has to support them even if they don’t cost much to run - they still cost something, both for bandwidth/storage and moderation/curation effort.

Not all of Reddit works, but some of it does for some people, and the reason it works for them is because the moderators shape communities that the community members enjoy participating in.

Personally, I think active communities below the Dunbar number (about 150) in size are some of the most rewarding to participate in, long term. But, there are always a lot of people who flock to wherever the biggest crowds are.

I think it’s always going to be a sort of long-tail phenomenon, with most people involved in the biggest platforms, but a large number of small platforms that attract a minority of the overall population.