[johnnyanmac]

>look for communities whose size is large enough to be impactful but small enough so that it hasn't gone through the scaling phase transition. This number is most likely in the range of 20k to 300k, maybe with an upper bound of 3M.

The issue is like Earth in the solar system; way too small of a "goldilocks" zone and in the days of the modern internet it seems almost impossible to hit it.

Reddit is undoubtedly too big, but look for any other competitor and the discourse can barely even hit the 10k mark, where you're browsing maybe once a week hoping someone made a post or left a comment in a post. And any modern aternative that does hit that mark (discord, tiktok, Vine back in the day) will quickly balloon past that 300k range.

Your only solace seems to be seeking older communities that have stood the test of time. Even 4chan these days seems to have cooled down outside of the larger, more infamous groups.