I think what you’re forgetting is scale.

Lemmy is niche. VR is niche. Gaming is mainstream.

You can’t call a niche dead just because there aren’t that many people into it. It’s a niche for a reason.

Linux is booming, even though it’s “dead.” Lemmy has never been this active in its entire existence. Why do investments from large companies matter?

What truly matters is growth. Negative growth is what kills a platform/industry/company/whatever else. VR is growing, Linux is growing, Lemmy is growing. It may not be fast, but they all have active userbases that support their development.

You cannot call a child “failure” just because it never achieved anything in life, can you? They are growing. They can get sick, they can recover. They can also regress due to that illness and die. Only then they’re truly dead.