Like many people I’m here because of reddit going to shit. Twitter has increasingly been shit. gycat is shutting down in September. To me it seems like lots of bastions of social media are crumpling, but as a previous active reddit user, I’ve been personally effected. Is this just a frequency illusion or has something changed in the world that has changed the business case of these sites?
Not just you. I don’t know if anyone’s made it official yet, but I call what’s currently happening the “social media collapse.” Corporations have been sinking their teeth into popular social networks, only to realize that they’ve never been profitable and that the people who use them don’t want to live with advertising or restrictions. The annoying paradox of social networks is that by the time they’re popular enough to be worth using, they’re already too popular, and are doomed by the whims of a meddling executive.
Exactly, the venture capital is finally drying up and the services can’t figure out how to sell anything to enough people to recoup their investments. Why reddit has to pull out third party apps and shove ads and reddit gold down our throat, why Elon has to shill Twitter blue and cap our view counts. Facebook and Google services exist because their business model is selling ads foundationally and not selling services. It doesn’t matter that their socials are losing money because it’s always been a branch of their advertising business and not the other way around.
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