Something that's been on my mind the past month or so:

If you want to know how culturally dead the furry fandom is, look at the artists you knew back in the day who did really good art and how they're inactive or got worse. Look how the groups you're in are dead, or just "lifestylers" who seem a lot like circuit gays in the sense they only live for the party and drugs (and their identity is interchangeable). Look how the furry you knew who was on the fence about paying an artist who will take the money and run/learning art is gushing about using AI models or even his GPUs. Look how artists are gone after DNPing their art on e621 because they felt Some Kind Of Way.

Turns out you can't sustain a community when you replaced creativity with driving everyone worth a damn out, like a shit job that's a revolving door and only sustains itself based on people desperate for a job.