I started going to RDNA forums when PoserPro 2012 was released.  I thought mentioning bugs/feature requests in the official forum would get them noticed faster.  Probably not (I've been told over and over only bug reports get noticed), but I still like checking in there.

If the users have indeed specialized over the years, it makes sense that there wouldn't always be one catch all forum everyone would go to. 

I imagine some of the Reality users check into that forum, and Snarlygribbly has a small forum too, I believe.  Plus, having figured out Poser by now, there may be users more active in the Marvelous Designer/zBrush/3D-Coat forums because those are the programs they have the most questions about.

There's also that site which can't be named...

I can believe the base is shrinking, just not on what seems to be anecdotal evidence.  Still, it's paid users and upgrades that concern me.  If SM keep developing Poser many of us will continue buying and using it.  I'm sure there were a lot of people over the years who bought a copy of Poser, asked a bunch of noobish questions, realized there was no "make art button" and moved on.  Maybe they play minecraft now, or went to Second Life.

My town used to have a great local music scene.  It's always had its ups and downs, but many of the more active bands playing now were formed by older musicians who'd dropped out of the scene to marry/raise kids and are now forming bands again because their kids have grown up enough that they can finally get away from the house long enough to practice/perform.  The decline in the local scene is a bit of a mystery...  Some people blame the resurgence in electronic music, assuming would-be musicians instead became DJs who only play at parties, or must make music on their computers at home and post it on SoundCloud/Bandcamp.  Others say there are just as many musicians as there always have been, but the scene became fragmented so there's not the buzz on the street that there used to be.  Or that local scenes as a whole are withering because of the internet/monoculture.  I've even considered that a whole generation (4 years in a college town) of kids played Guitar Hero or Rock band instead of learning real instruments and forming real bands.  But almost no one seriously believes it's because people just don't have any interest in music anymore (though some of what passes for music today could indeed be used to argue that point).

Similarly, I find it hard to believe that fewer people are interested in making/rendering/animating their own characters compared to just a few years ago.