At first it was all about presenting data in an original looking way. In the end it was about pushing political ideas in your throat using a plain bar graph. It was not about sharing something interesting you found but about taking advantage of a captive audience.
This too, hugely. I went back to reddit today for a bit and the comments in askreddit were brief, some only one word as an initial reply to the post, or just jokes. I’m all for jokes but it really stood out how reddit has slowly evolved and I really was a boiled frog who didn’t notice til I came to Lemmy and it was actual(!) discussions(!) again.