Not only did discussion used to drive that site, but thriving niche communities. I hired a young-ish (~25) webdev recently and he asked where I heard about a certain topic. I told him reddit and he was genuinely confused. I sent him links to r/webdev, r/selfhosted, r/sysadmin, r/datahoarder, and a handful of other recommendations. His mind was blown that reddit not only had those communities, but how deep the content was.

My point is, reddit has really leaned into the lowest common denominator audience to chase growth and has completely abandoned its nerd roots (most evidently by its API policy changes).

personal petpeeve of mine, that insta-gen as you describe it, is mentally incapable of making/uploading computer screenshots in computer specific subs (e.g. game specific subs). they upload photos of their monitor that look like ass, angled like they're tim walker and shaken like they're driving on cobblestone... almost like we're back in the 00s or something.
it literally requires more effort to post a worse picture and be removeded at than simply pressing print-screen and ctrl-v on the pc.
"bUt I'm NoT uSiNg ReDdIt On My CoMpUtEr So I'm NoT lOgGeD iN"
yeah, while at that better uninstall it on your phone aswell. nothing of worth comes out of you anyways. smh