I don't think it was the reason the playerbase died at all.
certainly not the sole reason correct, but it did lead to a fair few people quitting
the writing was already on the wall far before then though
And I did say that in my post as well. There's no rejuvenation in the playerbase, no new blood, no real advertisement, no real changes made by the creator, and the playerbase has this foul code of conduct that by "well if everyone else is doing it, we should do it too". It's so boring. No one tries to do anything risky anymore, or go against the masses (like Tob did in FunkyTown by not partaking in any groups for Resistance or whatever).
Even when I was mostly solo in the latter golden days of Bushtarion playerbase, I still got to see things like GloPols, and the forum posts, and the IRC chatter in the first round I was allied. Alot of that has just gone dead in the water, and it's such a shame really.