I guess our experiences are completely different. I took a break from a lot of communities starting in 2019 to cope with stress. I left one forum which was very active, and returned one year ago only to find that most people are gone and activity low. It's still far from dead, but to me the contrast is staggering.
Another forum closed completely and now simply links to a Discord server.
I can't help but be cynical with this turn of events.
I'm not sure if you're implying that I want to be where everyone is, so just to clarify: I saw a lot of people join fedi, only to move on to Twitter or Bluesky because that's "where everyone is". That's what I wanted to express there, this sentiment.
And as much as I hate it, I can see why people think this way. Modern platforms are stressful and require so much mental capacity that the best way to deal with them is sticking with platforms where most people you're interested in are. It just sucks that this usually leads to them moving away from the places I hang around, rather than the reverse. And that's why I was trying to follow them for a while.
In don't want to be where everyone is, but I want to be where my friends went (which will automatically be where everyone is).