Seems to me like the same problem Voat ran into. Generally, subreddits are banned for a reason, so any site that allows essentially any legal content is filled

Seems to me like the same problem Voat ran into. Generally, subreddits are banned for a reason, so any site that allows essentially any legal content is filled with those not allowed elsewhere. So when people want an alternative to reddit, the biggest one is filled with people that the majority don't want to deal with. And so those people tend to just stay on reddit. Epik hosting is simply acting as a dumb pipe. But because you really only look for alternatives if the big players kick you out, they're linked to those services now.