one obvious benefit that is true of smaller platforms generally is “more personal connections”. it is difficult to meaningfully engage with people on reddit as people and not just usernames; past a certain point it all necessarily must blend together and communities stop being meaningful. that in kind enables a lot of the worse behavior you see on reddit, i think–it’s pretty trivial to just think of anyone that mildly inconveniences you or disagrees with you as a subhuman idiot at that point (and to talk with them accordingly), whereas here that’s harder to fall into because you’ll pretty quickly get to know who’s who.