you can skip the “we exist” and “look here to find us” parts of the pitch and spend time and effort on the community itself instead.

Thank you for stating that so clearly!

Plus there are plenty of subs that strongly benefit from the population size or promence of reddit - very niche interests, smaller city or town subs, etc.

And there are some subs where the archive of past material is a huge drawcard - for example AskHistorians which is almost certainly the best single reason for reddit existing and the best modded sub I know of.

/r/cryptocurrency became noticeably gamed by actors attempting to maximize their financial gains.

I can’t tell if that’s life imitating art or vice versa but it made me giggle!