Is "Social" an Enduring Category or Just a Phase?

As Facebook evolved, adding comments, the newsfeed, the like button and then emoji reactions, Facebook intentionally pushed to increase the “write” side of the ratio in its base interaction model, but it was and always will be pushing against a rope. The atomic unit of content is predominately skewed towards an individual sharing something from the... See more

The illusion persists because there’s so much money in it. Back in 2016, Ben Thompson wrote that Google’s AI efforts were at odds with its business model: “If a user doesn’t have to choose from search results, said user also doesn’t have the opportunity to click an ad, thus choosing the winner of the competition Google created between its advertise... See more

Content-first and advertising-first will break down the dominant social networks over the long run.