In the few hobby subreddits that I frequented, non-mainstream opinions or new ideas were often drowned out by the hivemind and people with less experience or knowledge. In short, a real discussion rarely came up or was even possible.
And in the case of questions I realized that so many people have no clue but still feel compelled to answer.
I'll omit my rant on career advice subreddits here.
For my hobbies specifically, I've reverted back to forums. You can have a relaxed discussion over the span of weeks, and interesting threads might remain active for months. You can get to know the users by their signatures, and the average age of users is also higher. Some of the users might even be professionals instead of just hobbyists, where I feel that was rare on Reddit.