I've been on Reddit for the past 6 years, to answer the question about the point of reference.

In my opinion, Reddit is suffering from the same problem as the internet in general: the more quantity you have, the less quality overall. The internet kept getting larger and we couldn't index every website anymore so only an ever-diminishing portion that makes it to the surface; in Reddit, this is equivalent to how the sorting algorithms work (best, rising, etc). More people means more fun, but inevitably it means the general subreddits will slowly decay into normalcy. Whatever human biases and behavioural patterns we have will eventually decide what makes it to the top and how much each new opinion or idea is consumed. We're over-populated, and somehow I feel like a federated alternative to Reddit may solve that idea to some extent. At the same time, I'm curious about the new problems that will arise from with system. There are so many available services to choose from, will this lead to a healthier internet or will we get stuck in bubbles of our own creation? At this rate, we'll find out soon enough.