I've been making friends online for over a decade now (now 25); I discovered so many interests by basically ripping them off of people I met on Omegle or reddit

I've been making friends online for over a decade now (now 25); I discovered so many interests by basically ripping them off of people I met on Omegle or reddit or games and diving into them on my own time. And while ditching reddit because of the API change has been wonderful for me: it's kind of left a gap in my propensity to meet odd strangers. I've been wondering what made those subreddits a successful platform for me, and what "successful" here even means, and what percentage of reasonable people would agree with my definition. But reasonable people don't meet strangers on reddit, because that sounds wretched. And it is. I got to see the throngs of perverts and pedophiles and bots that had fated it so. In-part because I moderated some of them. But something about trudging through dozens of low effort shitposts to find someone who actually speaks with some semblance of interest in the world is nice in a way I can't find as easily on any other platform. So now I guess I'm curious where the people inclined to read this thread have found success in meeting friends. Did you ever try to actively make friends online? Where? Is that place still around? What made it successful for you? Are you picky? Comments welcome, or optionally: niam on Discord.