Scroll down on the main page. That's 70 members online right now, in total we have nearly 200 members.
And to answer your question, it's because it turns out people do want a place to discuss vtubers that doesn't encourage coomposting. Roommate discussion is an added bonus, sure, but I really think that outlawing even the slightest amount of thirstposting is what allows the other thread (and this place) to stand out.
Maybe I'm just retarded and missed it, but despite the amount of chumbud posting in the old thread, there was a surprisingly low amount of posts concerning Gura's members only content; I remember on one occasion, many posters in the thread who often posted about Gura during her streams said that they hadn't membered. I don't remember this local manager thing (or anything related to it) ever being shared in the thread.