Some people are mad at the staff for one reason or another. Everyone's looking for new options for that furry meet up place they wish this site was. There's a lot of things that might be drawing people away one way or another.

I have friends who are trying to create an alternative site to FA, wanting to put what could please people who are disappointed by the site, which has become archaic.

But it depresses me to see that it seems to have dropped in traffic and I wonder if the Furry community is not simply exploding into several pieces to go into small groups?

I think it's been going downhill since the owner passed away and getting rid of a very popular artist

I have noticed the decline in FA for years, not just this year.

I hardly post on here so guess i didn't notice until recently

I mean, can you blame people for leaving en masse? The mods are abusing their power and banning fetishes at random. If they're gonna ban ABDL content, they'll ban damn near anything.

Yes, it doesn't help, but I've noticed this for years, the drop in traffic to the site and it intrigues me.

In recent history Furaffinity underwent the loss of it's main owner, another hacking attempt from hostile outsiders, "abuse" of the new upload policy that lead to mass reports targeting the AB/DL furry subcommunities, and a lot of uncertainty in the air between all of that.

Not to mention some of the people that are here (me) are depressed, watching too many artists, too easily distracted by everything else going on, and don't actually circle back around to actually favoriting or commenting on any art posts from the artists they like. But I always read the journals at least. Feels like I don't have the time I used to have to work through all this stuff.

The furry exodus from Twitter to Bluesky is understandable. But if there's a similar one away from FA, it's either divisive when it is brought up, or people don't really know how to bring it up in a way that creates a productive discussion that they or their other friends / just randos benefit from. There's probably bias at play too. "This doesn't affect me / I'm staying" versus "The only guy keeping this place afloat (whatever his history) is gone and I'm being targeted now / I'm leaving" kind of deal going on.
If there were people I valued from that side of the community it'd suck to see them leave, but I don't know anyone so my eyes can only narrow towards the theoretical people who did infract upon the upload policy against the spirit of the word that were caught, sassily remark "Guess they should've started on inkbunny", and say good riddance after that.
If I wasn't so rules/truth/justice focused maybe I could actually be pleasant to be around.

I must admit that I consult the artists' journals less before and comment little under the images, having too many distractions, such as my projects or other things.
Maybe it's because I found the artists that I like the most and I tend less to consult the Journals to see who is open and take the opportunity to see Journals off topic.
On the other hand, I should try to comment under the images of some that are good for me.

But maybe it's because the FA interface is archaic, and people turn to something more modern, but neglecting other things, without forgetting that they are maybe like me. ^^''

Yes, this drama this year was huge and the loss of Dragoneer didn't help, even though it wasn't perfect either. But I have the impression that it's been years that I see a drop in attendance, not only this year and that intrigues me.

Maybe. I agree about the distractions. See what avenues you can take.

That makes sense. But personally I like the archaic-ness somewhat. It's not as overwhelming or restrictive in the same way every site these days is to scroll vertically endlessly with only a few sidebars with incredibly limited functionality.

Yeah... Well that also makes sense too, in the years leading up to all this going down it has gotten a bit worse over time. I'm starting to yearn for when people were more talkative or willing to interact.

I would like to avoid it being too modern, but if that's what it takes for FA to become popular again, we'll have to follow the trend towards vertical scrolling or leave. ^^''

Yes, I would like to find that time that people talked about a lot more...

If they switch to that format of web design for browsing I'm going to be very annoyed.

I don't know where to look for good places to find people to talk to are though. Ugh.

Only look for those you already like and try to talk to them again, like I'm already doing with you.

I guess that makes sense. But I might also need some new people I like to keep the pool fresh and populated.

Same for me. ^^'