When you're the less moderated alternative to a popular platform, you end up with a huge fraction of the users who got banned from that platform. For the most

When you're the less moderated alternative to a popular platform, you end up with a huge fraction of the users who got banned from that platform. For the most part, average people do not want to talk to the people who get banned from mainstream platforms. People who post images of children in bikinis described as jailbait are creepy. People who advocate political violence are scary. People who share shock content are disgusting. Perhaps you don't make exactly those value judgments, but most people do. They will avoid your platform because it's full of people they don't want to talk to or hear from.