I wonder if the 23% were largely bots? If so that may be why the experience feels better despite the metrics? (The people I follow, Paul Graham and others, seem as active now as before. Maybe daily active users isn’t a thing to maximize?)
every day i get a new follower or two which consistently have 50~70 following and 1000~1200 followers themselves (clearly bots)
The way they collect data seems fairly unlikely to count bots: "a panel of consumers who provide access to their information in exchange for the use of other apps, including apps that track screen time." I assume that both numbers were counted in the same way.
But my follower count keeps going up even though I'm not using it. Young women seem to be flocking to X.