Arguing that success is purely about the ultra high numbers seems to miss the forest for the trees. Is HN a failure because it did not reach the level of DAU as Reddit? The quality of discussion and community here is certainly substantially higher. I feel the same about Mastodon and Bsky vs Twitter. I’ll take community I actually want to engage with over sheer numbers any day.

I think critics would settle for commercial viability, given the funding structure.