At that point, they were also open source which was super cool. I always wanted that profile badge you got for submitting a merged PR.
Reddit really went downhill fast after ~2015. I think Lemmy will get there eventually. I remember reddit being a lot smaller back then as well. It took a while to get to the point where niche communities could thrive and I do believe we'll see that happen here as well (even if it takes a decade or so)