Shout comms in open world

This is just curiosity but the last 2 days I've done the seasonal event...no shout comms except for non stop Gold Sellers. I mean none, no one was outside Chinatown talking but the Gold Farmers were spamming like mad. Was weird. Were they just trying to get rid of extra in game cash before this current fix or is there a change in how shout works?

People still use shout?

They either paid $5 to keep using chat or they're logging out/in to bypass the timer.

Then you had a nice day, because it was Chatty Cathy galore while I was on.