Things have definitely gotten better. They could still get a lot better but at least the trending page isn’t EMBARRASSING anymore.
If we’ve become an echo chamber, it’s partly because the community lost a lot of its diversity during the bidbot era, and some people got lazy about meeting new people or connecting with old ones. Sometimes I think a lot of older users got tired of engaging, they try to reward good content but they don't read or watch any of it.
One thing that I think might be bit weird for new users (and myself) is seeing great post with great payouts and just 1-2 comments. The exception seems to be posts like this one, about hive and with decent payout.
All I can do is comment on everything I read and try to pick good posts to read. In fact there is a lot more I’m trying to do like the Deadpost initiative, but I find that aside from from some good friends I’ve made, it’s a lot easier to get an upvote than a read.