RIP, take my wheels away, I wiped out on the wheelie!

It weally was, I can’t believe I whiffed that wheelie

Also while there’s a modest amount of people here (I’d reserve small for under a thousand online, personally), many of them seem to have a rather narrow set of interests they like to engage with. Namely technology (self-hosting & Linux in particular), news (primarily to do with politics), and memes (a mix of things but largely politically-tinged, old memes, nostalgia-tinged).

Outside of these interests the next most active may be cute animals, comics, and video games with some gradually rising gardening, stitching, woodworking, art, and certainly other interest communities I’m forgetting or haven’t noticed.

In terms of fully free, obligatory mention:
Your library may offer more than books alone, depending on how well supported they are. Borrow music, movies, sometimes even video games. For music and movies they may also offer these to borrow digitally as well via online services they coordinate with.