I think it started in the comments, it felt as if the self-reflexive nature of the humour became less self-aware and what once were jokes in the voice of and at the expense of more bigoted philosophies were becoming actually serious comments propping up those laughed-at philosophies.

The left-wing echo chamber became a right-wing echo chamber and as such there was a lot more blatant racism and way way more cryptoracism directed at minorities and people of non-white origin.

Where before I felt that (on the whole) the news and temporary-culture subreddits (memes and the like) abhorred non-acceptance, suddenly that became the norm and the accepted tone shifted to one tinged with a heavily closed-off and conservative outlook; white elitist liberalism was as left-wing as it suddenly went.

My perception is that the voting and karma system where once felt egalitarian and more democratic was suddenly found to be a tool to show where the power seemed to lay.

Dissent was met with hordes of downvotes and basically snuffed out. Whether it was a shift in the userbase or bots suddenly becoming very active, it really shifted up the confidence of the more single-minded user.

I think the best thing about reddit was the comments and the ability to see how people in the actual industries and in the know of articles and posts would give great and insightful info, this felt lessened.

I feel the thing that was least effected were the smaller but active niche interest and hobby communities, and what I hope lemmy starts having more of.