So for now I'll take their word for it which for me works as well without concrete numbers.
in penitence for having been so harsh with you (and having neglected my own reading comprehension in an impulse) i will further gift you with my standing on this (no, don't thank me, it's ok, i'm just such a nice guy!
).
tl;dr i don't really care. my issue with this issue is how wrong the majority of arguments pro and con are.
i've never anounced doom, let alone based on steam stats. if anything i've consistently found the steam stats figures thrown around to be actually quite good looking! they show the normal ups and downs in any game and show elite actually performing reasonably well over time. it never was a blockbuster and if would publish a game i would be more than happy with those figures. i can't fathom how anybody could derive from them that the game is dying.
otoh the reaction to this is always plain hysterical. dismissing steam stats per-se is just dumb since steam stats themselves clearly caution about the limitations of their own algorithms and extraction methods. still, it's statistical data, take it for what it is! then the argument that steam is not representative of elite is just either ignorant (of the very basic definition of statistics) or directly malicious.
fwiw, i have my own indicators of how the game fares. it's limited data but it's all i have (i'd always be interested in looking at more). for one i follow this forum pretty regularly and have an intuitive notion that there's a core loyal audience which trickles slowly away, and that there is a steady and periodic influx of new members. which is, oh surprise ... the situation to be expected in any game that does ok! which is consistent with what i see on steam stats. all said, i really don't care!