It's possible this is a required evolutionary step. I think specialized curation ( and consumer recruiting) might work well to reverse activity trends. For a while we were the best place for crypto news and now redit is much better or Bitcoin talk. We have 3000 active users. We are much better writing about (and rewarding) their shared interest than something that might appeal to tens of even 100 of them. Writing for people to get them to join is not smart. You don't need to join to read! We need to write for the activity producers( posters commenters, voters) the rest will come automatically.