I joined Reddit almost 15 years ago, shortly before I became a freshman in high school. I mainly joined it to chat on r/programming back when that was one of the top subreddits. I was just starting out as a programmer and it was instrumental on teaching me the subject. It also taught me about life in general as a relatively sheltered introvert.
Fast forward 15 years, I now have a PhD largely due to the path that community helped set me on. You could follow a very similar journey of maturity for me through my Reddit history (and that’s the main reason I haven’t flushed my posts, even if I was an idiot at 14 that was my personal journey). The Reddit I joined changed a lot — we had characters like Bozarking and there was a strong libertarian element in contrast to today’s left leanings. I remember the Digg exodus changing Reddit fundamentally but not necessarily for the worse. The big subs declined by the niche ones blossomed and taught me much about my hobbies.
While I don’t expect to fully leave (Google will lead me there or I might have a question where I am not sure what other site has a pertinent community to ask), my use will decline 99% or more. I have long been aware a lot of Reddit has sucked but there was still a lot of value to be had. It’s also been apparent for years that Reddit, the company, has zero clue what users actually want (hint: it’s not 3 separate chat implementations, nfts, and profile pictures), however this open hostility towards the users and mods who volunteer their time (mods have had their problems but generally they are good, after all, you only notice the bad mods).
I won’t miss most of the absent scrolling I do on Reddit, but it also has been a bit like my childhood friend passing away. I am not sure what my online future will look like, but it will be strange without Reddit being there.