My experience is that new players seek out DMs and games to join, not specific systems. Our group has seen dozens of first-time TTRPG players, all of whom were seeking out "their first D&D experience", and none of whom cared one iota which game rules provided it. My current players refer to our game as "D&D night", although we don't play D&D, or a clone of any kind, and never have.
Someone mentioned D&D being the Kleenex of TTRPGs. Just because new players call something D&D doesn't mean it's WoTC's product they're playing, or even looking for.
My numbers are similar in starting with my games, and my experience is that it happens like that, OR, it happens when someone, usually fairly young, buys the game and figures it out with a group of friends, much like a lot of us did back in the day. Occasionally, I get a cross-over from one of those groups into mine, even someone who taught themselves to GM. That usually spawns an in-depth conversation about why I run the way I do (a lot more like early D&D than anyone would get opening up a WotC product and running it as their first experience). There's usually some doubt about it, while at the same time acknowledging that they enjoyed my game. The usual result is they leave the conversation in thoughtful silence. Sometimes this has an actual effect on how they run their games, sometimes not.
There is a strain of wishful thinking that runs through this forum, or more accurately, one strain of wishful thinking and one of despair. One group, the RPG mechanics snobs, thinks that enjoying a D&D-like game is, de facto, evidence that the person is either close-minded or dense or both. If all of these people would ever try [insert their favorite game of the day], a new world would emerge with scintillating butterflies and heavy metal unicorns of good gaming. Meanwhile, the despair crowd is convinced that there is something lowest common denominator about D&D (appeal, branding, bandwagon, whatever) that makes it akin to an addiction. So of course no matter what happens, everyone currently playing 5E will stick with whatever the Wankers produce.
The reality is that the snobs are correct about a tiny slice of the D&D (ish) player base, and the despair crowd is correct about a tiny slice of the same base (albeit, maybe a slightly larger slice than the snobs). The vast bulk of the remainder of the player base is filled with mostly casual players and relatively few who really get into it. Some of the casuals will become more interested if they can hit on the right group. And with the recent bandwagon effects, there are of course a big chunk that aren't really TTRPG players, never have been, never will be. They go through the motions, and as soon as the motions cease, they'll be off to something. I hope that WotC keeps every last one of that last chunk in their new endeavors, because it will make the "community" they create completely alien to real players.
TL;DR: We only want the quality players in that existing base to move, whether to something akin to D&D or something more exotic.
I think you're missing something here. This situation is completely unique. Hasbro has already managed to piss off a large number of people. They're using veiled threats of weaponized lawfare to destroy the entire TTRPG industry
(not just OGL games), to destroy all other VTTs, and with subtle implied threats to go after anyone posting game material on their shitty Internet blogs.
Hasbro is basically trying to
BULLY and
GASLIGHT the entire TTRPG hobby and industry into switching to a somewhat related, but different hobby. I've never seen anything quite like this before.
Playing an online video game with an AI DM Chatbot is not the same hobby as tabletop roleplaying games. In regards to VTT, there are certainly similarities to tabletop roleplaying games....but what Hasbro is trying to do has more in common with computer games or MMOs or whatever. And these evil retards are trying to intimidate or gaslight everyone into not playing, sharing, or publishing TTRPGs any more
(not just OGL games). This might not be completely obvious, but their highly weaponized tactics of corporate psychological warfare demonstrate that this is what they are trying to do.
I do not know what will happen next, but I do believe Hasbro made an enormous tactical mistake that cannot be easily fixed. This mistake is potentially exploitable by people who publish games. Hasbro removed their mask, and reminded people that the D&D trademark is not controlled by gamer nerds, but by monstrously evil billion dollar corporations.
I think we all needed that reminder.