I'm basing my "still growing" assessment off google trends, nobody thinks to bot that. The trends for Slashdot and Digg [0] more or less match up with when they died. While reddit [1] is still growing (at least up until 3 months ago, but that's most likely noise). You really have to zoom into the right date range to not have Reddit dwarf Slashdot/Digg [2].

The new users aren't exactly high quality, but they seem to exist. Or at least advertisers think they exist.... shrug.

For some other fun trends, checkout Facebook which has been clearly declining since 2012, or Instagram which appears to have been declining since 2023... not entirely sure why.

[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=slashdot...

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=slashdot...

[2] Zoomed: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2004-01-01%202...

To be fair, adding "reddit" to your search query has been one of the few ways to get away from the SEO garbage to the point where it's become a thing. So I'm not sure how effective Google trends is as a measurement.

Guilty.

I know Reddit has become infested with junk recently, but it just shows how bad the broader-internet has become that I'd rather search in Reddit than walk in that swamp.