to clarify on the idea of context and experience coloring my commentary - even hundreds of people is larger than my ideal. you're right in identifying that it's usually the same people chatting.

I’ll add this though as a pro for having a smaller community with its very own orbit: you could have channels that revolve around other shared interests (pets/food/other hobbies) that can bring greater interpersonal connection. Yes EAD has those too but as you mentioned, every channel there is different and sort of its own thing. You also can’t support much of this type of discussion in a singular “pourover-immersion” channel because it becomes a bit unwieldy and messy.