I always see in any stakes in 6 max nl holdem, even as low as 10nl there are always a ton of tables running and whenever the players to flop percentage is higher than 25 the table instantly fills up and there are instantly a bunch of people on the waiting list. In plo it is nothing like that at all, there are alot fewer table running and rarely does a table have more than 3 people on the waiting. Even on table where the players to flop percentage is something like 40% there is often no people on the waiting list. I understand holdem is naturally alot more popular than plo, but why is there such a big difference in the number of regs? Why haven't more people not transitioned to plo? Is it because there are a lot fewer training videos on it? It just seems strange to me that there are clearly a lot of fish playing plo but there are not many regs compared to holdem. It could possibly be because the rake is a lot higher?

Preflop ranges are naturally wider in PLO than NLHE because equities run closer, hence 40% is not a spectacular percentage of players per flop, it usually indicates that there are two fishes at the table, but one of them will usually be the one who'll give up a seat for you, so you can end up playing with 3-4 regs and 1-2 fishes (that's at PLO50 on iPoker / Stars unless you select tables thoroughly). 40% per flop in PLO is like 20-25% in NLHE in terms of table softness. You'll see more flops together with fish, but don't forget that you'll pay twice more rake in bb/100 and have twice bigger standard deviation than in NLHE with the same blinds.

People transition to it, but the rake is so high that it quickly bankrupts them and they get burnt and go do something else.

I am doing better in PLO and is true that tables are softer, rake doesn't botter me and I am playing micros.

Maybe it sweet better to my nit style than holdem.