What today’s social apps can learn from Web 2.0, the social network revolution from 15 years ago at andrewchen

monetizing directly with subs, NFTs, etc

letting creators own their audiences

After all, one of the hardest lessons we learned from that period: It wasn’t enough to build the app, you needed to also grow a critical mass of users. Without the right users there at the beginning, a user-generated content product would inherently be too shallow on content. Low engagement would lead to more low engagement.

Originally, creators didn’t exist. They weren’t a thing. So bringing them together with their audience — even if they didn’t own that audience — was amazing since it provided a degree of ads-based monetization.

creating a followers/status competition for engagement

small networks or algo-driven big ones

monetizing with ads

building big networks with feeds for discovery

evolving media format towards interactivity

supporting photo, text, video