I think it depends on how the servers are setup. Chat channels with 1000s people participating are typically worthless as the signal to noise ratio ruins it.

But when the majority of conversations are happening in forums/thread style channels then it works well. You can still have some more niche chat style sections where typically 2-10 people participate

Chat channels are also fine for lots of people when its not about conversations but more just about sharing things. Like a "Share what you build" or "memes" channel work well as tons of messages are fine as you only care to see a few anyway.

Also limited size voice channels can be good aswell 5 people max.

My thought is that it just doesn't make sense to have a product which serves both communities of 1,000+ people and a small group of <50 friends. You end up making far too many compromises.

I used to just engage with my friends. Now it feels like a really noisy reddit. Sure I could leave all of them, but that is kind of my point. There is an identity crises for the product.