I got my ass booted off Poal recently, though TBH I was low-level baiting the guy that runs the site so I asked for it. I toyed with going back but frankly I'm not missing anything, the place was weak cheese to put it mildly. Reddit is different, however, because of the huge number of diverse subs and immense number of users a large portion of which are not running around with a banhammer and spoiling for an excuse to impose their sense of justice upon any and all that dare utter a word that does not align with the hivemind. In short Reddit continues to be extremely helpful when I have practical questions about a hobby or my new cell phone or whatever. But I'm very careful to police my language when making a post, because I know that even in the most innocuous subs the morals police are ever vigilant. It's a hint of what living in Russia was no doubt like. You could never be sure which neighbor or acquaintance was waiting for you to slip up and utter something against the state, so that they could report you and curry favor with their overlords.

So I continue to use Reddit, as much as I fucking despise the place. It is heartening to see that subs are starting to post stickied notices pointing to an on-line community for that particular interest that exists elsewhere. The day I no longer need to go to reddit to post questions will be a happy one indeed.

And to be clear I sometimes look elsewhere when I have a question. But reddit has provided more quality solutions over the years than my attempts to "just google it" by a significant margin. Again it's the sheer volume and variety of Redditors. However recently I saw a report that reddit had dropped off the list of most visited sites. So between the place getting less traffic and users going away because they are banned or because they are sick of the BS there its usefulness is no doubt in decline. A trend that most certainly will only accelerate.