You the real deal?

Solid point. One thing that these companies will realize quickly if they plan to move from ad based to subscription services is that a lot of them won't make it. Especially when the price of everything is so high. It no feasible for people to sub to 8 streaming services between film and music, add on a VPN, the odd Patreon, lots of people with ring and other camera and security subscriptions. I get that people will shuffle between services, but that might not be enough, and the more they go for the customers throat, the more likely people will realize it's a want and nowhere near a need.

I noticed it too, so its not just you. I think that the less moderated any site is, the loudest minority will make themselves heard, even against the majority. Well structured sites are worth the effort to them it seems.

I highly doubt were about to have a sad ending to Footloose take over everywhere. People probably dance more when they are happy or maybe when things are really bad as a way to cope. Things haven't really been great for a giant portion of the population. Inflation, food/gas prices going up, interest rates etc. If things improve people will be happy and go dance. In the meantime I think people are pretty stressed and drained from day to day life. End of the day I just think you may have confirmation bias mixed with maybe a narrower world view on why people might not want to dance like you expect as well as many people feel completely opposite to you personally. To each their own.

It just feels like these massive communities are both important but also impossible to maintain and preserve properly in the current digital/market landscape
Unfortunately we don't know if it's impossible since we don't see many companies trying. Most companies are going downhill due to shareholders, then we have Reddit which doesn't even have them yet but still ruining things to prove to them they're willing to play ball.
Of all the major companies I'm aware of I think that Costco is the only one I haven't heard horror stories about in the past year. Amazing that so many companies employ pr, yet I can only think of one with somewhat good public perception.

I find it strange that today is the first day I haven't seen any links to articles about Reddit, maybe online news sites are taking the day off haha.maybe they're just waiting to have actual data before reporting, again surprising if true.

Not gonna lie, where I was mildly satisfied/entertained with Reddit, having squabble, kbin and tildes, sorting on all on new across all the sites is still kinda not enough interesting content, for me personally. I'm sure day by day it will get better. it's already more interactive and feels more welcome across the board to add to the conversation, just don't get those big full comment sections that take time to work through and keep my brain from being aware of my surroundings.

I'm confused as well, some of the time I get a little circle with a number next to my username and other times I don't, didn't realized being mentioned by name was the cause. Would be nice to have some more consistency with notifications.

Do they speak in an unnaturally deep voice and wear black turtlenecks?

I think it maybe important for us to all collectively shift our views on commenting on "old" posts. I'm going to give myself a 2 week window on commenting on threads. If everyone had this kinda attitude it may help with engagement short term til things start picking up long term.

It'll be interesting to hear from the odd user that kept their accounts how things change in the coming weeks and months. It's cool that so many websites made articles about it but it still felt very clickbait and polarized on even those sights. Users will know the truth and hopefully update us on the shitshow to come.

Sigh and it begins...