It seems like you do need to reach some sort of threshold of user numbers / appeal. (Doesn't have to be mass-appeal). Otherwise things do tend to wind down, understandably.

It is also possible that perhaps things wind down, geidm to a halt. Remain dormant and then re-emerge much later, taken up by other people. Perhaps ...LESS BURDENED by the dominant user group that caused the stagnation and winding down. That's just one possibility maybe ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ 

 Well, I don't disagree. But it's a fun experiment. 

Honestly, what would be nice, is if just everyone ran a blog with a rss feed. And that feed was just aggregated by rss clients.

In this sense "everyone is a relay" and the dream of nostr was realized back in the early 00s with blogging on WordPress sites.

Bit I have low expectations. I have internet friends here, yourself included. So as long as my internet friends are here I'll stick around.