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.

Your experience is largely dictated by the person that set up the server. If you want, make your own and keep it small.