[MrRadar]

Any "Reddit alternative" will have a hard time gathering users as long as Reddit exists (and doesn't alienate a critical mass of their users ala Digg). Dan Olson of the YouTube channel Folding Ideas made a very insightful video about the problem of setting up "alternatives" to popular social media platforms (having lived through several painful platform transitions himself): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3snVCRo_bI

The tl;dw is that if your "alternative" platform doesn't launch with unique and valuable features of its own to attract users away from the original platform then you will only attract toxic people who get kicked off the original platform as the first users of your "alternative" platform (because they are the only ones really in need of an "alternative"). This creates a self-reinforcing pattern where non-toxic users are repulsed from your alternative platform by the toxic users so growth only comes from more toxic users. You can clearly see this in the dynamic between Reddit and Voat.

[WhiteAussie]

Isn't that, in itself, a unique and valuable feature? An established player that becomes highly censorious creates the market for a newcomer offering an explicitly free-speech-oriented alternative. I personally value that very highly.

I'd remind you too that a lot of people - including myself - don't see this "toxic" dynamic the way you apparently do. Our stomachs might turn at the sight of much of what is on reddit nowadays just as yours might when you see the front page of Voat.

Maybe userbases are generally dividing as we seek providers with which we are more politically aligned, with decreasing focus on the bells and whistles they have on offer. That's their value.