At first it was all about presenting data in an original looking way. In the end it was about pushing political ideas in your throat using a plain bar graph. It was not about sharing something interesting you found but about taking advantage of a captive audience.
There was a point where Ama was big enough to attract some interesting people but Reddit was still small enough that it wasn’t just media circuit. Then it just became another polished, one sided, commercial, media trained nonsense
The post-Victoria era was the worst