Follower count does exist, you just have to use the correct tool.
Try npub.world
Discussion
not everyone is using the biggest 20 relays. measuring activity on nostr can't be done while ignoring the small relays. analytics on the whole network also requires a substantial number of smaller relays being joined by the analyst which requires communicating with them (or subscribing).
X has a subscription fee now anyway, idk why anyone is surprised that access control makes the network more opaque. that's the point. it's called "privacy" it doesn't just mean using encryption. asymmetric cryptography enables authentication too. the majority of the "big"npubs in nostr dev ignore this.
I'm trying connect to "all" relays
yeah, and it's actually not that hard to recursively search for relay lists and then accumulate them. idk what the most efficient strategy is for it but exhaustive search gets the result. you could probably say it's done when you are half way through the list you found and found no new relays