Fediverse severs have a bit of a natural size limit, which means site-level moderation is easier. Admins also aren't motivated by ad impressions or vanity metrics that impress investors, so there's that, too.

It doesn't remove bad actors, of course, and there will be no lack of bad admins, but it's still more friction than exists on corporate sits.

Yes. Old.reddit was a lifeline, but it was inevitable the current direction would lead to it's death.

Speaking of "Old" reddit. I recall there was a thread once where a "famous" redditor managed to game the system and take a thread through it's natural evolution entirely by themselves. It reached pretty high in /r/all. It looked like this:

Asked a question. Kept replying to it with genuine answers and arguments. Went on tangents, hijacked portions of it, even firing up Godwin's Law. This person created replies and sub arguments entirely solo. It was basically a entire self-generated thread exposing every direction a viral reddit post could go; I think the redditor was protesting upcoming changes.

Neat.