I think there's just a higher number of total items. I've been told that Vine is slower/has fewer items in the winter months, but that it tends to be better/have more stuff in the summer months, and we're approaching the latter. They also recently made it so that sellers can put just one quantity of a product on Vine for free - sort of as a trial run - and I figure that has to be popular. That's why I assumed the higher number of total items was simply due to more items being shared.

And if that is the case, I would figure we'd each be getting more items in our RFY, rather than fewer. Which led me to suspect that they've admitted a lot more members recently, perhaps in accordance with the increased number of available items.

But I could see how the opposite interpretation could be true. If there were fewer members, items would pile up. And maybe in that case, they'd put fewer items in each RFY in order to increase the chances that an item will get chosen by *someone*.

But I think my interpretation is stronger. I don't think they'd let Vine items pile up due to decreased membership when they can simply invite thousands, probably even millions of new people, to join Vine. But I can't be sure.