There are more boards than Holla Forums and Holla Forums. Holla Forums and Holla Forums have both been quietly growing as non hot pocketed alternatives to the 4chan boards. Etc. , etc. just watching the user count can tell you this.
I was here. Mistakes where made. There's no viable alternative to run too. The site didn't work for a long time, owner changed, made mistakes and changed dost interpratation. The board hit hardest was Holla Forums as far as user count goes.
In other words, not everyone left. A few communities left while the site was broken, thats not something I can say I begrudge anyone for. (/am/ /4chon/ /legion/ /sp/ ) but Holla Forums was a wasteland for a long time same with Holla Forums.
Even boards like /liberty/ are getting to 20 pph or more.The drama you're mentioning is Holla Forums centric at this point. But the idea that everyone left isn't true.
I've been to the alternatives, librechan is just pedo content it'd need a few hundred users who aren't at least to be anything but that. Endchan is super dead. Holla Forums.pl is too.
I don't entirely agree with how jim has done everything honestly, but this site still has lots of great boards. And Holla Forums is up and down here. I still don't need an insane amount of posts per hour to enjoy a board. And there are lots of nice small communities here.
The site works again and lets users build their own communities, that means its not just Holla Forums. The type of person who needs 1000s of pph of "rolling" is adhd and isn't meant for any imageboard but 4chan in the first place.
Once again, Holla Forums is not the entire site, and this everyone left thing is just a narrative. (I've seen people saying things like, yeah they all left for endchan, mabey thats why it gets like 200 posts per day and 90 percent of them are /am/ and another gamergate split off board. Who left for librechan? Mostly pedos thats why the topic boards aren't at all active)
The site lost some of its initial user base, but it has the ablity to form its own thing still and is. The mistakes are partially duds, and partially jims. But the truth is, flaws and all, I still like this site in large part for its nice little communities.