This isn't how I remember the culture years ago. I looked at reddit every now and then, but I really came over six years ago during the big Digg v4 revolt when Digg fucked up their site. At the time, I remember being really impressed how many of the comments on reddit were more personally supportive, which I rarely saw elsewhere - for example, I learned a ton from r/fitness back then.

Yes, there were the more odious subreddits, but it was perfectly possible to surf around reddit and never be bothered by those.

The culture of reddit definitely seems to have gotten much worse over the past 5 years - to me, it just generally seems meaner, and there feels like there is more trolling overall. Even simple, seemingly straightforward posts seem more likely to spark some sort of vitriolic debate. Perhaps it was inevitable as reddit grew, but it still kind of sucks.