Honestly, the Bitcointalk numbers have been going on a downtrend in terms of traffic and engagement for the past few months, especially after that mixer ban. People have moved onto other forums, while others just decided to log out.
I have been observing it lately. Boards that used to be active now have just 2–3 posts a day
Maybe some brands have noticed the decline in the impressions and decided to move elsewhere as well.
Bitcointalk is a tiny bit of where brands can advertise, there are social media platforms like Twitter, reddit, facebook, Exchange and casino review sites etc
Are there even forum traffic stats posted anywhere? I know we used to have forum stats page but it was discontinued and the track ends in 2017:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=statsI've noticed some dips in activity, especially on our local Polish board. Some people lost spots in their campaign which led to loss of motivation to visit the forum.
But as for those who followed mixer campaigns and "teleported" to altcointalks forum - from my observation, I think most of them are just now active on both forums rather than switching to ALTT completely. But of course if you spend a lot of time there, then you'll be spending less time here etc.
And yes, this is no longer the first place to go for new people who get into Bitcoin. As it became mainstream, all major social media platforms now have their own Bitcoin communities. But most of all, most of the newcomers are only interested in buying BTC for speculation, so when pretty much all finance/banking/trading apps now allow investing in BTC, then there's no need for them even to understand any technical aspects of it or look for more information.