It is probably due to a number of people stopping using their alts after some instance hopping.
Also a few people who came to see how it was, and weren’t attracted enough to become regular visitors.
Curious to see at which number we’ll stabilize.
Next peak will probably happen after either major features release (e.g. exhaustive mod tools allowing reluctant communities to move from Reddit) or the next Reddit fuck up (e.g. removing old.reddit)
Stats on each server: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list
In the meantime there are some apps that “block” instances. Connect has it, but it doesn’t fully block the instance, more like it shows up in the feed with a content warning that the message is from a blocked instance and you can choose to view it if you want. I also do think lemm.ee will defederate from hexbear pretty soon. The admin has had personally horrendous experiences with their users and that meta thread about it was a dumpster fire of hexbear users making unrelated political comments and blocking the actual instance users from having a discussion. It got locked at almost 2000 comments so I’m sure he’s still digging through that toxic waste to make his decision.