I'm more motivated to participate when there's fewer comments. On Reddit I often refrained from commenting when I noticed the other commenters already covered the point I wanted to make.
Don't forget karma removed, where your comments will be invisible to the algorithm and you seem to talk to an empty wall, while one liners and easy jokes are at the top.
Same here. Even subs (instances? communities? still figuring out the lingo, sorry) are so quiet I'm even posting actual posts. Or on news posts, I have a question about the content where on reddit someone will have already asked and I can just see what responses or vitriol they got.