what other platform is there? Deviant Art and Toyhouse are the only ones I can think of

Primarily just looking for somewhere where I get engagement.

discord goofy ahh toy house server thingy

I've debated making another discord

Have you considered Itaku?

This one knows it needs to get its squeaky butt back onto so-furry, got the account when it was on yiffstar. More places can be good just keeping track.

Sadly, that's the way things are nowadays on here... and everywhere else I can think of.
The question isn't whether you should move or not. It's "Where" you could possibly move to?
The other furry art sites are even more disengaging, and mainstream options like Twitter and whatnot don't appeal to various people for various reasons.

At the end of the day though, I feel like a lot of people want to be recognized and commented on... but don't want to reciprocate and do the same for others. (I'm pointing fingers, but probably not anyone any of you know).

It depends what you mean by "engagement" I suppose.

Unfortunately I'm pretty convinced that art galeries like FA, DA, Furry Network etc are sites where users tend to scroll, fave some art and then move away to something else without commenting on any piece...but I'm pretty convinced it would be the same thing if you were posting art on social medias like Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr etc.

Again, it depends of what kind of engagement you seek coming from your watchers :3

I do this to an extent, though I do try to comment sometimes.

But well, sometimes all I'd really have to say is "That looks cute" or "Ooo sexy/lewd/naughty" and well, is that really engagement either? Especially if that's mostly the only thing others are also commenting?

But yeah, it depends on what one defines as engagement at the end of the day. On my own end, I don't get as much engagement from the art I get (or stories I've written) as I'd like, but I also remind myself that this is mostly a gallery and artist site at the end of the day more than anything else.

I plead guilty as I'm not really the type to leave constructive comments either, and sometimes it's just hard to communicate what a picture you faved sparked into you xD I don't blame you or myself from struggling to comment and I don't blame anyone for not giving recognition to what I create when I do. But as you said...it's a gallery and we just tend to scroll through it quite quickly...xD

well part of it for me is sort of like... sure I could leave a comment on everything I fave, but for quite a few all I could really comment on is "I think its cute/sexy/cool" and that's about it. And while such can add to the number of comments a piece has (and can certainly be better than just seeing a big fat zero for such) it can also at times to me come across as not being all that engaging either.

And speaking from personal experience, I tend to value more comments on my own pieces (especially writing) that result in more than just "Hey I like it" or "This is cool", even if such comments are still nice to see and give a brief spike of "yay happy feeling" :P

Its why generally if I'm going to comment, its usually because something about the piece caught my eye more so than others. Doesn't always happen of course, and sometimes I'll leave a comment because I notice a piece doesn't have any.

that's taking the risk of losing viewers, I personally don't look at all the furry sites. Best is to use many of them but not leave one to use another exclusively

Ditto to this 👆