oh? that has always been the case, open continents have always been based on server population, which itself has been pretty stable for the past few years. not gaining players, but not losing either
the Connery and Soltech servers are more empty than the others, but other than that, it's fine. Devs are still working on updates, and regularly bringing new things and doing balance changes. recently, Bastions have been changed to be more supportive and less death machines, construction has received a big overhaul, MAXes cannot be revived once killed, and last year a new map has been added, Oshur, with water and mechanics that go with it, to a pretty mixed reception, but I think they have done a good job at improving it over time!
The Playstation version is pretty much dead, with very low player counts, but mostly, it has stopped receiving updates for about a year, with no words from the devs so far
I use a root based adblocker on my phone, and I didn't get this popup at all. I enjoyed the original Boost for Reddit app enough to have paid the whole 3€ for it a while ago, and today, the familiar design, UI, and extensive features feel more comfortable to me than other apps, though I don't spend that much time on lemmy either