DA.....let's do a comparison. 
Let's take a look at my photograph here on DA shall we? 

Now let's take a look at the same photograph on 500px shall we? 500px.com/photo/123207395/the-… What do you all notice? Look closely! 

First off, the numbers between the 2 images are very close. DA is a tad ahead in terms of views and favs but not much. Not that I care that much about that stuff anymore, I played the popularity game years ago and got burned out. It's interesting to note though that on DA my photograph is in many groups compared to zero on 500px.

Now here is where it gets good. 

On 500px I only have 1,507 followers. On DA that number is more than 10 fold with 10,820. Now wouldn't it make sense that DA should be blowing away my stats on 500px with that many followers compared to 500px? However it's not and in fact they are very close. 

It's an interesting little thing to note. I also love how I can display my image "on black" where the color comes alive on 500px compared to "Mann's Mint Green" (if you play TF2 you get that reference). 

I understand why so many are flocking to 500px and why so many have left DA. It's simplicity and effectiveness defined.