Only 24.70% of all fics have zero comments
The exact number at the time of this writing is 4,283,326 fics with zero comments. That's out of the total of 17,344,053 fics. That means over 75% of fics *do* have comments.
I wanted to bring this up because I thought it would be interesting. It's true that comments are rarer than they used to be. But as a whole, we as a community are interacting with the works! It's not all doom and gloom out here! It might feel like sometimes we're writing into a void but it's not the case. Fans are passionate even if many are shy. I personally leave guest comments on and don't archive lock my fics because I want people to have every chance possible to share their thoughts. Though I fully understand people who lock their fics from comments and guest accounts entirely; that's their own peace of mind and is a valid way to use the archive.
I checked my current fandom and only 14% of them have zero comments, which means that this particular fandom is more talkative than average ❤️ (this fandom has about 6k fics for some perspective)
I used the advanced search and set the comments box to "<1" to filter it down to check these numbers. I would love to see the stats from other fandoms.
I've made it a personal mission to filter to fics with zero comments at least once a week and leave one! It's really fun; especially for older fics that are buried but are still wonderful! :D I'm sure a few authors are being startled by the emails haha