I dunno @jaynie... seems like a number of possible things. But yes, I've noticed that engagement is down, and if you look at Asher's weekly compilation for the Engagement Leagues — even compared to a year ago — it's not a pretty picture.
I think a lot of people simply fizzled out when they realized that the time they were spending here couldn't even be justified as a part time income gig, so they went to flip burgers or walk dogs instead. Life happens. So now we're pretty much left with only actual bloggers and content creators...
Even though there seem to be signs of life, the long slow downward slide in the price of Steem also hasn't helped much.
With the last hardfork changing the "sweet spot" for curation/voting to +/- 5 minutes, automation became more attractive than manual content discovery, as a result of which people still get voted but comments are fewer. Sometimes I feel like a total alien/Luddite because all the votes I make are manual.
In some ways, the advent of SCOT tribes and now hives/communities has been good for raising interest, but the greater implication is that a lot of people move, read, curate and comment in narrower circles than they did before... I know I tend to look at things from within the confines of either "hive-114105" OR the Creativecoin community... as a result of which I'm sure there's a lot of worthy content I don't see...
Yesterday, I started working on Dan's "People you follow" challenge... and after an hour or so of poking around, I came to the sad realization that I was almost building more of a "tribute post" to people who've left, than a celebration of people who are still here. And that was pretty sad... so I'm feeling the need to expand the post to include both, now...
I'm sure there are further nuances, but I haven't had enough coffee yet to discern them!
xo
Hello Hello :)
I caught wind of Dan's initiative this morning and was considering doing a post on it as well - but I fear that mine would probably be similar to yours in that respect.
I also saw your comment on Asher's curation post yesterday and it is disappointing to see. I guess, yes - the reasons are pretty much as you have outlined and that too is unfortunate.
As for the communities and tribes etc. I personally NEVER browse for content via those avenues for that specific reason - I don't want that sort of niche limitation... and it makes me wonder about all the newbies here... they must be feeling seriously "lonely" if people like ourselves who have been here for years and are a part of solid communities are noticing the tumbleweed blowing around lol.