FWIW, I'm happy to sponsor both, they innovate in different ways. Chess.com with their content sponsorship and deep player pools, lichess with ad-free, open source and unique UI features.
Yeah, I strongly dislike chess.com, but the fact that it sponsors so many amazing chess content creators makes it more useful existing than not existing. Too bad most players gravitate towards it over the superior platform (lichess).
It's not just content creators. They're involved in events, marketing, and all other sorts of stuff that's dramatically increased the reach of chess. You really can't overstate how much they've done for chess.
I've played online since back in the days of ICC which was a defacto monopoly given how much larger than it was than all other sites. You can see their records here [1]. Their record for the max number of players logged in was 7,352. Chess.com at a really random time right now has 183,538 people playing.
It wasn't long ago that all of the big tournaments were gradually dying off - even Linares died, for lack of funding. And then the rise of chess.com (along with Magnus - who is an absolutely amazing world champ in terms not only of play but also 'ambassadorship for the game') just sent the game in an entirely different trajectory that nobody would have imagined just 10 or 15 years ago.
It’s become somewhat cool and modern again with chess.com. It’s hard to ignore that. I quit playing competitively around when I turned 14 because it was so unpopular/geeky for someone that age, but with chess.com pushing marketing and streaming so successfully it seems much more likely a teen will carry on playing.