Having been to the factorio reddit, I can say they probably would have accomplished absolutely nothing. I finished the game my first play through in about 25 hrs. Redditors, on the other hand, had 100s of hours in the game and still hadn't managed to get through oil processing which is the technology that signifies the transition from early to mid game.
I've been a server admin for Redmew (one of the largest multiplayer groups) for the last few years, its not so much people are confused, but rather a lot of time is spent optimizing megabases, learning more effective ways to play, or just trying the different game modes. Not to say there aren't some stupid people or casual players who take a long time to understand all of the mechanics/strategies, but the super sweaty players are basically just sharpening their skills, or otherwise just enjoying the game. I don't know of any of them that post on reddit either, which further adds bias. Mods such as Krastorio, Space Exploration, Bob's, or the thousands of others add a ton more content and challenges as well.
You're expecting too much from Redditors.
Yeah it is easy to beat, but for me the fun was trying to make something efficient and organized. I also turn the tech cost up to 5 to make it so that I had to expand my base for resources and made the bugs super hard.
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