it doesn't look like it has helped marketshare on desktop: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

WTF
Did you even check the tables in the link you posted??

1.9 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.7 % -> 1.6 % -> 1.7 % -> Opera 15 final release 1.6 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.7 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.9 %
This is what you call "drastically dropping"?
If anything the change brought more new or returning users (according to the stats yourself posted).

Now click Opera to see the detailed breakdown of the current 1.9 %. You can check the versions:
0.5 % is on 17+18 and 0.5 % is on 12 and this is without distribution of the new browser via auto-update, half of the user base is already in the new Chromium-based versions. (0.7 % Mini and 0.2 % on mysterious "Other")

That's not to say those stats aren't skewed BTW. Just look at Haavard's blog posts about market share stats, a quick search there and you'll learn how those stats never reliably represent the real number of users.
Just look at different sources and they'll even invert the painted scenario completely (a recent article in ZDNet about browsers market share stats discrepancies).

If you want to know the real number of users, look for the Opera Software quarterly reports as they're clearly stated. If I recall correctly, the latest one shows a drop of 1 million desktop users since the previous one, but remember you must compare this data to much higher drops from 3 to 5 million in quarters (or year-on-year, I don't remember) when only Opera 12.x was available.
Of course that still won't show whether gains are new users, or old users returning, or old users going away, or new users going away, or Opera 12 users dropping at a faster rate than Opera 15+ users because they don't know about the new browser update and are suffering with the old version because of X reason not bothering to check the forums for a solution and uninstalling, <insert more hypothetical and impossible to be proven reasons here>.

maybe coz people figured out no opera dev comes here

Well, longtime users know that since the beginning. And it's kinda clear on the forums main page that Opera emplyoees will not answer everything.

The problem - or one of them, at least, imho, is that people used to come here to ask for help and or to help others; to discuss, in a high level, about Opera and its features; to suggest new ones, to give a good feedback about what they were liking or not in Opera. Also, people seemed to not be afraid of trying new things, new approaches.

More than that, people seemed to not be so hurried, they used to be more patient and give more time for things to happen.

Lately, unfortunaly, these forums became full of rant, insults, useless discussions, users that come only to create framebaits, people that want everything for now, and so on. I used to watch most of the topics in the main part of the forums but now i drop most of them because almost nothing useful is brought. It's just the same "mimimi" (almost) all the time, people acting like selfish children that want things their way, that don't even try different ways.

And it's has been happening since a long time, well before the changes in Opera.

Well ... even the Opera forums activity has died down by ALOT.

maybe coz people figured out no opera dev comes here
so all our crying goes into wind

...but it doesn't look like it has helped marketshare on desktop...

In order to analyse changes in browser usage share, it's better to use stats from many websites, than only from one. w3schools analyse traffic from merely one website, StatCounter analyses traffic from 3 million websites. According to StatCounter, Opera's worldwide usage share on desktops, laptops, tablets, and consoles has increased from 1.10% in July 2013 (release of Opera 15) to 1.31% in December 2013.
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201205-201312

Netmarketshare analyses traffic from 40.000 websites. They don't detect Blink-based Opera versions correctly, so as users migrate from Presto-based Opera to Blink-based Opera, Net Market Share claims that Opera's usage share would decline.

Originally posted by greekonsun:

nobody will block it

except youtube

huh ?
YT works for me even on v11

filed a bug at wikimedia because their stats seem not to count 15+ correctly (because it does not show up at all, and even 10.10 with its 0.01% share shows up)

Where can one access up to date statistics from Wikimedia? The article is outdated.

nobody will block it

except youtube

... Opera seems to have hovered around 2.5% market share in 2011/2012 and then looks like it is drastically dropping. Do you think this is a result of the change? ...

I'd be careful about drawing such a conclusion based on these stats. In the site's data, Opera's share dropped at the start of 2013, months before Blink Opera came on the desktop scene or was even officially announced. Likewise, all the non-Chrome browser shares dropped at or during 2013 as well, so it's risky assigning the cause to an Opera redesign based just on these stats.

Opera seems to have hovered around 2.5% market share in 2011/2012 and then looks like it is drastically dropping.

Opera's representative allege the opposite.
Who cares?