And once you've spent all of that time making reddit meaningful... there's virtually no new content, because you realize that the site is basically an echo chamber (not that HackerNews is much better in this regard, but eh.)

Reddit was done once they refused to put the jackboot to the hate communities over fears of the Digg-like user revolt, letting them fester and take over other subreddits. It's literally impossible to go a day on reddit without running into some racist diatribe, even if you go to the far-flunged reaches. Even /r/linux is completely unreadable.