Been on dA for 14 years. I used to be very active on there in 2008-2009, but got little to no traction at the time. Back then, it truly felt like to get any visibility you had to draw fanarts; I got my short moment of glory when I started to share portraits of 80s rockstars, but then art block happened and I stopped posting for a while. I eventually decided to start using it as a place to dump my recent art. Deleted old stuff, rebranded the account and... surprisingly got far more traction than I've ever had in 14 years XD
Don't know, I think it's probably because the place has far less active users than it used to have, so it's easier to get noticed. I'm also seeing far less fanart and lots more original stuff on my homepage nowadays. Also, although the algorithm and new tagging system have been widely criticized, I think it actually made it easier to find stuff that looks similar to what you already liked. Pretty sure one of my recent Redbubble sales came from there, too!
I don't engage much with the community on there. I just use it to dump my art and run... but yeah, can't say that I hate it either. I love the variety of features it has (unlike most social media, which keep stripping platforms of their core features and/or make you pay for every single basic thing) and I definitely enjoy the additional visibility. Here's my profile, btw: