A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659
Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )
Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience
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use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as "Good news", "Hobbies", "Art", "Life advice" help to see more content than politics and tech
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discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
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go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.
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use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don't remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies
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report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can't see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.
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use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the "doom and gloom" overwhelming your feed.
Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities
I honestly like the small, eclectic vibe better.
I don't know what the number is, but I'll arbitrarily say, anywhere under a quarter million is perfect.
I know the federation model provides a strength against the cascading list negatives that plague popular platforms, but I don't doubt that with a large enough user base, exploits would certainly seep in, particularly with ease of AI bot manipulation and astroturfing.
It reminds me of the Linux saying "security through obscurity".
Reddit has so much more content and frankly 80% of their real non-bot userbase seem to be ok. Wouldn't hurt at all to get like 10% of the best of them here. That'd be about 5 million people.
Ok, now that I think about it, 70k => 5M would probably hurt the servers a bit.
Let's go for the top 1%, we all love the top 1% right?
It's very difficult for a set of volunteers to combat people being paid to manipulate their platform, so I'm happy with this platform remaining small enough to not be worth spending money on to manipulate.
Except most posts are created by bots here too.