Opinion: lobste.rs sucks because you need to be one of the chosen people to post there, and you're only chosen if you think like someone already in there. The posts there are very high quality, but it might as well be a hivemind's blog. Why would I read someone else's comments when I could make my own, on a different website with the same links posted?
But you don't want to end up like reddit, with their facebook tier front page and repetitive, bot(-like ?) comments. Reddit sucks now is because they let anyone post anything, and the admins want to capture the stream of quick, digital trash coming out of tiktok and the likes. That's what the shareholders want, more users to sell ads. Who cares what the peons babble about, make sure whoever visits the site doesnt have an ad blocker and stick around a long time.
Having a small community lets you specialize more and, in my opinion, specializing a website is much healthier. Discussions are much more pleasant when you go to traffic-forum or chair-forum dot com to discuss traffic tech or leather chairs. You go to reddit, or facebook, or whatever, and see mounds of unrelated videos and pictures flooding your screen. The moderators don't do their job because when you allow everything, you only have to do the bare minimum.