Other than some jerks that I've blocked, being on here reminds me of the old / early days of reddit...before it became Spez's money mill. I find Lemmy to be fairly informative and entertaining. We have a long way to go before becoming a substantial archive of knowledge, but it's kind of exciting to see it slowly grow.
As for having free time: I browse Lemmy while watching baseball games and during various points of down-time throughout the day / week.
Same. While I wish the user base was larger, I've been impressed with some of the answers people have provided to folks needing advice. Also, some of the discussions around news and current events are insightful / thought-provoking.
I have never knew the golden Reddit, I've only seen it get just worse and the history of the legendary Aaron Swartz, so I hope you're telling the truth. ^^
It's kind of like the one year that Facebook was cool: you signed up, there was active moderation that encouraged community growth, there weren't too many users endeavoring to be in a monoculture, and the company wasn't trying to make money at the expense of its user base.