Reddit really lives on old content. Loads of useful advice from real people, helpful recommendations, and questions and answers make Reddit still relevant.
It's a different story for new content though. Videos and images have been reposted as hell, AskReddit now just revolves around asking the same set of questions, and a lot of niche communities have slowed down.
Yeah the destruction of the niche communities plus the Big Brother style moderation is what drove me away.
To put it in context, I was an active member of a gardening sub specific to my growing zone, and THAT got AI astroturfed to hell and back. Mods did nothing about it. So I say good riddance to the cesspool that reddit has devolved into.
Here you go: https://www.reddit.com/r/OhioGardening/
Looks like they cleaned up a lot of the AI spam that was happening a few months ago, but they still let this one crazy guy post his fisheye lens youtube videos with updates about his garden. I'm all for it, but it was honestly annoying AF and most of his videos got downvoted. No one needs self promotion in a gardening sub.
I agree, specialized subs are really the only reason to use it. There are enough people on it that niche subjects have sufficient people to keep the communities going. Lemmy does not have that for all subjects (yet.)