Go look at the major irc chat hosts. Add up daily users. Then compare that number to the estimated users in 2005-10.

Lemmy isn’t social. It’s just forums aggregated. One could use it as a social app, and some people do, but it really is not necessary or even really welcomed.

I have seen estimates of a reduction of 50 to 75 percent in the number of forums over the last 15 years. There are certainly a lot less. People go to reddit or discord these days.

Same with IRC but the decline is even higher.

I would not consider Lemmy social media. Forums are few and far between, IRC is barely still kicking and Usenet (as it was) simply doesn’t exist.

I was curious about Usenet awhile ago, was it still linked computers mirroring information like the old days? No, it more or less simply linked usenet providers at this point.

Why? Internet rules from the days gone by - everyone is a liar. So it shouldn’t matter.