This place has roughly 3,000 people and was intended to be an entire replacement for DaystromInstitute and StarTrek as they were going dark indefinitely. Well, within 4 days the moderators have walked back those statements and opened both subreddits up. I see no incentive for people to come to this website now and while a few may come here in the future, most people will go to r/startrek with 600,000 people.
Exactly, it’s going to be a long slow process. This will have slow bursts like we’re seeing now as reddit makes their app shittier and shittier, but we’re never going to see an exodus like Digg again, Reddit is 100s of times bigger now.
It’s going to look like Facebook, where over time people leave as they realize they don’t need it anymore, and eventually all that will be left are stubborn people, the people in admin/mod positions that refuse to give up power, our moms, the people who think Minions memes are funny, and the thousands and thousands of bots talking to each other about how great lysol cleaners are.
Honestly the only people that will remain there are, as you said, either very stubborn, or too young to give a damn. There’s a community that I was a part of for a long time that I loved deeply, it was a very warm and inviting place. When the sub went on blackout and took a poll to extend indefinitely, I made a passionate plea to the sub to really consider what’s at stake, even though so many of them felt like it was pointless. I wasn’t rude, I wasn’t callous or pessimistic, I just wanted people to know that whether something seems hopeless or not isn’t the point at all, but rather taking a stand for something you believe in should be the point.
I was promptly met with a barrage of downvotes and someone replying to me spewing vitriol and telling me to touch grass, with another person just shrugging and saying they just want things to go back to the way they were (by ending the blackout). It’s weird but I was honestly pretty hurt by that response. This community that I came to know and love turned on me the moment I suggested we take a stand.
There really is no persuading people like that unfortunately. But, hopefully, slowly, change will still happen.