I firmly believe that niche content like what you mention is the life-blood of the site, and the biggest contributor to it's longevity. People come for the meme

I firmly believe that niche content like what you mention is the life-blood of the site, and the biggest contributor to it's longevity. People come for the memes, but they stay for the litany of small communities that cater to their very specific tastes The fact that people often append "reddit" to their Google queries is a testament to this. Even if they aren't active participants in these niche communities, they know that they are the easiest place to find reasonably reliable information from other humans on them. If these types of communities stop flourishing on Reddit for any reason, then the site will become much easier to replace by any other generic meme factory.