I go on Lemmy and mastodon and have had no reason to visit reddit. The content on Lemmy reminds me of how reddit was many, many moons ago - less content, but higher quality. I'm part of that "older generation" of the internet, with the "information superhighway!" posters in my local library when I was in middle school, so I get what you mean.
My wife still visits (logged out) to read bestofredditorupdates, it's all she really likes that's there, which isn't really here yet.
Personally, I really like the federation model. I think it has a long way to go still, but this structure makes sense to me. I'm interested in seeing where it goes.
As far as other solutions like discord, I don't use it much aside from a few niche things where it's the best place, due to the number of non-tech people involved. I think that will shift over time too, as federated solutions becomes easier for the typical user.