I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
Yeah, i feel the same, for a lot of reasons i've noticed around here
a lot of niche subs usually were created turing the apicalipse 3 years ago, but were quickly deserted, so anyone curious about thoses interests right now on lemmy would just find old communities where no one has spoken for years, and get back to reddit out of boredom.
the few staying for the mainstream communities where there is still some activity are continuously hit by the same topics (lemmy is small and divided enough nowadays to act like echochambers unfortunately) and either participate, or feel excluded and leave.
Echochambers, stereotypes, and hatred contribute to make lemmy more small and divided.
The cycle continue, and that's how you kill a defederated service. Honestly, i see more people arguing about communities or users from lemmy itself than people simply debating or talking about things from their interests. That makes me a bit sad.