Yes. It's the bots, see Gersham's law 'bad comments drive out good comments.

It's called the Dead Internet Theory. It was more of a conspiracy 10 years ago but with AI it's becoming realistic.

While I still see a lot of people scrolling through traditional social media while I'm out and about, it does feel like more people are starting to disconnect (which I think is a good thing) even among my younger friends and family.

I still browse Reddit every now and then, especially for the more niche subreddits, but I don't have an account nor do I plan on making one. I've definitely noticed a lot of low-effort comments that makes Reddit look more active, but the substance really isn't there. So while a similar (if not the same) post here on Lemmy would have less or no comments, it substantially feels the same to me.

Despite the fact that I'm usually a lurker and don't have much to add to most of the posts here, I've recently been making more of an effort to be more active here on Lemmy to combat this. But honestly, as someone who hasn't had a proper social media account for over a decade now, I actually prefer a more empty internet vs one filled with nonsense.

Think of it the same way as huge companies appearing in town and suddenly smaller, independent businesses begin to vanish.

Thirty years ago, people made their own web sites. They either bought their own domains or did the Geocities/Angelfire thing. Today, those same people have instagram, Pinterest…any number of social media accounts, and that scratches the same itch as having your own web site used to. Lemmy is part of that trend too. So independent web sites with their own quirky character and unique content are fewer, and those people have been absorbed into the big spaces where they struggle to get noticed.

I miss the days of surfing the web like in the 90s. I sometimes try to do it again but don't get anywhere.

I think the internet is changing, but maybe not in the way people think. What feels emptier is the centralized platforms. Mastodon, Lemmy, and other fediverse spaces are actually getting more interesting because you can find communities that care about depth. But yes, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram those places are hollowed out by algorithms. You are right to notice that. I am working on something to help map where people actually agree and disagree, instead of what algorithms surface.

Maybe the age verification thing has to do with it...

Yes, personally I'm spending less time online, hell less time on any device for that matter.

Old users die, and new users get treated like an enemy.