So I'm thinking about a possibility to the great filter that involves Von Neuman probes which you can see about here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHMIv_zAbrM&t=363s

The possibility I'm considering is that this network got made a long long time ago and it's basically everywhere. So what happens is that well before an emerging civilization can send out an interstellar colony it gets advanced enough to capture, dismantle and capture the data that's on the network. The probe network might even cooperate with this in some way. Once you get access to the probe network it's already full of all the things you might have discovered by exploring. Want an up close of the Pillars of Creation? The probe network has been studying that for millions of years. Network is also full of information from other civilizations, many of which no longer exist. You can also see that most habitable planets are already taken so you just end up improving your own system with all the new tech you just got and putting all your own knowledge on the system. So very few civilizations bother to go out very far into space, you already learned what's out there and how to optimize what's easily available nearby. Anyway just a thought.