Good point. Once a website is too noticeable, it is much more scrutinized. This has been seen countless times and its much harder to have the free flow of information when everyone is in on it. Then again though, that's why there are hundreds of instances, you can drop ship in the mainstream one and take a quieter approach.

Don't forget scammers. The sub I was a regular in had 900k+ members and there were scam bots trying to farm karma with reposts, selling fake merch with stolen art etc. constantly, sometimes multiple at once. That basically never happened to the smaller subs I regularily visited, as they apparently weren't "interesting" enough for those people. ...and I have the feeling that this issue will get only worse with the planned reddit changes and whatnot, but that's no longer my concern.