Really? Well, first, tens of thousands of people clicked on Obama's link and filled out the voting information on Election day. Sure, that's an extreme and rare example, but a popular link can influence democracy.
More realistically, though: my life has been dramatically altered and formed by comments I've read on reddit. I learned python and lisp because of reddit, studied algorithms more intently, learned enormous amounts about politics and world news. There have been countless comments that have fundamentally altered the way I think about math and science, about morals and life.
I can't imagine how much I would have missed in life without a place like the reddit comments. Sure I would have picked up some of that stuff elsewhere, but it happened for me on reddit.
I think you are underestimating the impact of reddit comments.
> Step 1....Step 2....
I enjoy reddit by doing quite the opposite of your suggestions, so that's really a personal preference. I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal, while I'm off participating in a thread about pythonisms.
>I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal
There are hundreds or thousands of communities out there where people are crapping on science, yet here you are on Hacker News.
About the only thing two unrelated subreddits share is the first part of their domain name. They have different moderators, different users, a different focus. They are effectively completely different communities - the fact that you treat them as related in any way but tangentially is an illusion, nothing more.
You could say the exact same thing about the internet. All the stupid things people are saying out on the internet doesn't seem to stop you from using it.
Perspective, please. I believe you seriously overstate the impact of having a popular post on an internet discussion board.
In any case, that doesn't really change my point.
>And many of the subreddits are run by totalitarian dictators, so you end up with large and powerful subreddits that are curated by crazy moderators.
Step 1 to enjoying Reddit is to unsubscribe every single one of the default subs. They all have this problem (the reasons which and how seriously are up for debate, but that's another discussion.. for now, let's take it as given).
Step 2 is to find a smaller sub for your interests. The readership of this site would probably enjoy r/sysadmin, netsec, programming, definitely more. It is a different kind of community, granted, but it's not near as negative or not "legitimate" as you claim.