My perception is definitely things went down after the start of the pandemic, not only referring to this thread.
Most definitely covid had something to do with it. The pandemic caused a lot of conspiracy-prone inhabitants of this thread to fly totally off the chain, never to return to a state of mental balance...
sadly... many of the conspiracies became reality and we are not through that yet.
So who is to blame...
Then the merit farmers started invading once it became well-known this was the place to go for easy merits...
That was the heaviest and worst change imo. But what do you expect when you set up a system where merits = $. ....Of course the threads are gonna be invaded by users from the "3rd world" who can earn more shitposting here than doing a standard job in their country..
(I realized many Pakistani accounts come in waves and leave again altogether for a few days. Looks like the accounts are connected in some way and they come farming in intervals.)