From 2,997 active users across all lemmy instances at the beginning of June, the number increased to 52,797 by June 30th. Source.
An active user on Lemmy is "someone who has posted or commented on our instance or community within the last given time frame.” Source. That means lurkers are not counted as active users.
We’re really building something here!
The complication comes from things aside from the sign-up process. It’s understanding instances and navigation. People don’t know how it works. I.e. what is the equivalent of a subreddit? Who hosts it? Is it someone’s personal server? What if it goes down suddenly? Etc.
But that’s not an issue with the sign up process, so why are people complaining that it is difficult and complicated to sign up?
I agree there definitely should be somewhere that shows an infographic of how the fediverse works. I’ve seen this one that can be handy for people to understand.