Azz on Nostr: Yeah, it's hard to get engagement because nostr relies on who you are connected to to ...

Yeah, it's hard to get engagement because nostr relies on who you are connected to to populate the feed. If you don't have connections no-one sees you.
I suspect that most people who stay are because someone was fishing in global and found them when they joined, so they got plugged into a group of people looking toake connections. This isn't really feasible now that it's grown.
Communities are the next step for an organic growth. This will provide a place for people to discover new people and make connections. I think this should be the basis of onboarding, sending a link to join a community is better than prepopulated follow lists it would allow organic growth.