It seems to me like traffic is low on DU

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68. There's a difference between traffic and engagement...

If there's 500k visitors (traffic), but only 50k of them post or rec a post (engagement), that's two different measurements of how a site is going. A really high level of traffic is great for a website that wants people to read (media, and I'd include DU), but a low level of engagement is bad news for a website that wants or needs people to do something once they arrive on a page or site (I'd include DU in that, but to a lower extent).

I think what the OP is noticing is lower engagement. I could hazard some guesses as to why that's happening, but for me personally it's a mixture of bluesky, being busy, and like other posters upthread have said, the inability by a loud minority to respect views they disagree with. It's only a few days ago I saw a thread where a third person jumped into a back and forth between two long-term DUers and called the one they disagreed with a troll, which the first long-term DUer started agreeing with and gleefully going down the troll rabbit hole. I've got better things to do than be subject to that nastiness and place my faith in a jury that may or may not hide a blatant violation of the TOS.