I don’t have any regrets here. I vastly prefer the vibe of the fediverse. I feel like I can actually contribute and have people respond to me meaningfully.

I do think it was a “reality check”, as you say, for some people that the exodus wouldn’t completely bring reddit to its knees. It’ll be a slow decline into irrelevancy that will take a longer amount of time as new mods become overwhelmed and give up, people slowly realize the content creators and commenters have moved on, etc. It could take years.