It's hard to get hold of precise statistics but most (honest) attempts at quantifying it end up at around 10+% of total Reddit users. So we're potentially talking 10s of millions of MAUs (monthly active users).
Definitely significant when compared to current Lemmy numbers
I've tried half a dozen on Android. wefwef and LiftOff are the best right now IMO
I think it depends what you mean by "survive" really.
Even if it persists with a large number of users. "Reddit" will still be dead IMO. I don't know what this new thing is but it is nothing like what Reddit used to be.
And the people who wanted... whatever the old Reddit was, just won't be there anymore (people like us I guess).
It's hard to pinpoint exactly what these qualities are but I think I speak for most of us when I say it feels like they've been getting eroded for a while now. I'm glad we might get the chance at a bit of a reset.
I couldn't get through all the 4chan praise to be honest.
I also lament what the internet has become in the 20+ years I've been using it, but I don't agree that 4chan is a good poster child for what it used to be. I hate that there seems to be a mystique around it now like it wasn't some amoral cesspool. In fact, the reason I signed up for Reddit about 12 yrs ago was because I felt so dirty browsing /b/
I don't know what sort of crowd generally hangs out here yet, but if we do manage to bring back some of the glory of the old internet, I really hope we can revive more than nihilistic meme culture and trolling.