Technik

People aren't monolithic, you get different versions of people depending on how you invite people into a community (and reinvite in every interaction).

Corporations are only interested in inviting in versions of you that will make them a profit, which warps the whole experience and inveitably emphasizes shallow interaction. Profit also requires chokepoints and the algorithm will always tend towards making the popular more popular and the obscure more obscure to create influencers who can be used as vehicles of advertisement and influence.

It isn't the amount of people that is the issue with reddit!

It is the choices made about the structure of interactions in a community and the fundamental motivations behind them that defines the span of possible communities that can exist within.

Is a social network a physical asset of a community or a business that exists solely to create profit for investors? The answer to that question pretty much tells you everything you need to know.