I can speak only for myself, but my participation here is limited to brief spurts between long absences of six months to a year, determined by the length of time it takes me to forget the outrage and annoyance of being repeatedly censored by prigs, prudes, and humourless authoritarian factotums. For example, I just discovered that a long, thoughtful answer I gave which answered only one part of a multi-part General question was quietly torn up and thrown in the trash by some infuriating busybody who decided that the world needed to be protected from my attempt to communicate my apparently unacceptable views.
I know for a fact that I represent a certain segment of the population because quite a few of my acquaintances, whom I have introduced to Fluther, have had similar experiences and left Fluther entirely. The general consensus I get from them is that Fluther is priggish, prissy, and liberal in the very worst sense of the word. This is why I suspect that my own experience here may be part of the reason that Fluther has declining membership. The chances are very good that my acquaintances share many of my traits; this is why they’re acquaintances. It stands to reason that they would also share my experiences here.
Fluther seems designed, by intent, to appeal to non-conformists. Given the wild right-wing yaw Western culture has undertaken, the post-literate era in which we live, and the growing incapacity for any kind of critical analysis in the general population, Fluther by its nature bucks the intense social pressure for anti-intellectualism. The result of this is that the denizens of Fluther skew educated and literate, which in turn skews liberal and bourgeois. However, Fluther also has rigid rules and a system of censorship which seems based largely on whether a given posting is sufficiently outside the gestalt of Fluther’s user base to provoke moral indignation. This combination of non-conformity with authoritarianism is what gives Fluther its “feel.”
Unfortunately for Fluther, this set of circumstances acts as a Procrustean bed which excludes both the sweating, fly-covered herds of reactionary conformists which ruminate in places like Yahoo Answers and the considerably smaller, but still sizable minority of non-conformists who chafe under rule by authoritarian decree. The tent Fluther has pitched is extremely small. There are a few dozen who can fit comfortably inside – so comfortably that they often express surprise that others believe there is a tent at all – and a few hundred more like me, who can occasionally fit an arm or leg inside, but are otherwise rained upon non-stop. I believe this is why Fluther has difficulty attracting and keeping new members.