Your post makes it seem as though you think that, because a subreddit's top posts do not have high karma/votes, that the idea of subreddits is somehow not worki

Your post makes it seem as though you think that, because a subreddit's top posts do not have high karma/votes, that the idea of subreddits is somehow not working or flawed. I disagree - the whole idea of a subreddit is to take something out of the mainstream and put it in a smaller niche. It's of course going to have lower votes because a smaller audience seeks it out. The positive thing though is that, because the audience sought out that source, they are likely to be much more engaged than if they were reading a 10k+ post. There's a lot to be said for the "noise factor" that large posts get (in terms of comments/replies/snark). Smaller, more engaged audiences are not worse; they are just different. Besides, the subreddits on reddit are of the "Anyone can create a subreddit" variety which, I would assume, is very different from what OP is asking about/for with respect to HN.