This is an article by Cat Valente during the Twitter Migration, discussing the cycle of enschittification and the history of social media.
We found it very perceptive and helpful when leaving Twitter, and I think people leaving Reddit may feel the same.
I love the history of the internet, so this article was a fascinating yet sobering read. For me, the internet really changed from 2014-15. I was really on YouTube as a user, for both music and entertainment (mostly comedy and animation.) Like, my middle/high school friends and I loved jacksfilms and tobuscus, for example. Then sometime after 2015 it felt like YouTube became boring and wierdly conservative. There’s a lot of good content still, but now it’s all 3 hour thought pieces about politics or fandom or both. It felt like YouTube went more and more mask off on the “buying things” part, making the ads longer, unskippable, in the middle of videos, faster to loads, etc.