Truth again.
Streitaxt tells his opinion, you tell yours. From the perception of both of you, both is "The Truth".
To find out, which is the truth, or ... which truth will be seen as true by a majority, both ways should be tried.
However, Streitaxt tells of the experiences of other publishers and internet companies, while you have nothing but words (opinion, perception), which on your perception might be "really true" ... and then tell us, on what "We" focus.
And if I do like Streitaxt and look at numbers: yes the new ones are - you tell it - a steady number, coming and going, not changing the sum at the end. But the "incredible valus" of old players ... it's decreasing. You lose them, no matter what you focus on. That's what happens for years now. Over the years, the SUM of players is decreasing, going down.
What I wonder about is: there is a crowd of old, trusty, engaged, enthusiastic players, but their number is decreasing. And there is no visible efford (just only words like "in the future we will..:") to KEEP some of the new ones for a time, that they will join the old group.
For me, there is one thing quite obvious here: Samisu is the only one, whose words express enthusiasm about the product, and pride about being the one to talk to us customers.
Enthusiasm is like a fire, a torch ... to keep customers, that flame of enhusiasm should be passed from the makers and their speakers to the customers and players. To keep customers (and to gain new ones) the best way is to express your enthusiasm, your pride, not only by words, but by action, not only by "in the future we might be able..." but by a spirit of "Yes we can!"
I see enthusiastic players here, proud players ... but on the publishers side I only see Samisu acting (acting!) enthusastic and proud and passing on that flame to us.
So, at the end, you may tell Streitaxt to be afraid, cause you know a better truth. However, looking at player numbers (and at business numbers) from my perception Streitaxt is closer to the truth. Streiaxt (and others here) offer THINKABLE ideas, ideas that were successfully tried by others. And instead of trying to find the little diamond in his words, that your team might think about to create increasing numbers and income ... you just tell he's not really true.