The emergence of social media has destroyed all the small communities to standardize communication and information.
It’s a bit of a digital version of rural exodus. And since 2017/2018, I’ve noticed that everything that, in my opinion, represented the internet has disappeared.
I’ve known Lemmy for a few hours and I feel like I’m back in the early spirit of the internet.
There are sites that track this information or you can use the way back machine. IRC is a quarter or less of what it used to be in say 2005-2010.
That is real data.
Hard to argue if the source is “there are sites”…