<…>
There are two separate matters here, that could have a common link between them, or not:
a) Is Bitcointalk less active overtime (i.e. as the article you referenced in the post I am responding to states)?
Well yes, that is pretty much true. The number of net posts created on Bitcointalk has decreased quite a lot since the beginning of 2018 (see
https://public.tableau.com/shared/CM5PFFGQ2?:display_count=yes&:origin=viz_share_link), especially due ICO/Bounty coming to a stall with regards of what it was back then. With less ICOs, less bounties, and ATH being a distant mirage, many people have gone amiss from the forum, just in the same way they swarmed in when the tide was rising high. Things seem to be rather stable as of late in terms of monthly created net posts though; not decreasing as of late.
This is not an isolated feature, and since you referred to an article that looked at Google trends, let’s look at it from a broader perspective (i.e. 5 years instead on 1 year and comparing Bitcointalk with Bitcoin):
The two charts have quite a similarity. That is to say, as expected, sways to and from Bitcointalk are pretty much related to the sways on Bitcoin itself.
Note that Google trends is fine as a reference tool, but subject to some drawbacks:
- It can, at times, be allegedly manipulated (see
Google Trends went crazy for the Btc search).
- It is based on the relative value of searches of a term vs all searched terms, and does not display absolute values (see
re:Google Trends went crazy for the Btc search).
b) Is Bitcoin Community moving over to Reddit?
The stats I referenced (
https://subredditstats.com/r/Bitcoin) show (scroll down the stat) that comments per day is receding pretty much over the past few months (except for July 2019 where it was pretty high for some reason). On the other hand, the subscriber cumulative chart shows a nice surge between 137k subscribers in 2019. Bitcointalk in the same period has 157K new accounts (see
Statistics of user registrations on Bitcointalk 2017-2019). Granted that many of those Bitcointalk created accounts are twat-a-bot type accounts, but I cannot say what goes on on Reddit to compare this side-effect.
Now whether the r/Bitcoin is really gaining adepts from Bitcointalk, in a clear transfer of “core” contributors is something I do not know, and cannot really see referenced here numerically. Either way, I’m pretty sure both environment have posters and content of all sorts, good and bad, but it would be interesting to get some insights from people that are usual contributors on both r/Bitcoin and Bitcointalk to compare from a perceived quality point of view. For the time being, I have seen no objective proof to that effect.