I guess we hang out in different academic circles. I met a single algebraic geometer in my whole academic career. But people are into very different stuff where I come from, which may have biased me (topology, number theory and category theory for the most part, and a lot of relativity/fluid dynamics on the applied side of the department). Based on rough estimates from papers published on arxiv over the last few years, I (very) conservatively estimate there are ~5000 working algebraic geometers in the world right now.
> The amount of people I know who would love to learn this material [...]
I am one of them =) but my point wasn't really about people who want to learn the material (which I assume includes many orders of magnitude more humans) it was about people who already deeply understand it.
> The amount of people I know who would love to learn this material [...]
I am one of them =) but my point wasn't really about people who want to learn the material (which I assume includes many orders of magnitude more humans) it was about people who already deeply understand it.