The downfall of MySpace and how similar it is to X
- The Spectacular Rise and Fall of MySpace: A Case Study in Product Complacency
- @mkarolian.bsky.social on Bluesky
History Tools:
When Facebook‘s founder reached out to discuss potential collaboration in 2005, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe infamously dismissed the meeting. After all, with Facebook‘s mere 20 million users compared to MySpace‘s hockey stick growth well into the 100 million+ territory, there seemed little upside to a partnership.
However, Zuckerberg and his team had quietly focused on building a robust technical infrastructure and targeted product strategy. As Facebook raised more VC funding to fuel growth by late 2006, MySpace‘s woes of rapid innovation and flagging user trust provided an opening.
They astutely opened access beyond educational institutions to welcome everyone 13+ years old. Bolstered by enhanced privacy features, a cleaner UI, and an emerging developer platform, the site started attracting swaths of technically savvy power users.
20 million users fighting against another social media platform with 100 million+. Sounds familiar to the current situation between Bluesky and X, formerly Twitter. The difference being that there was only really one alternative to MySpace in Facebook. Now we have Threads and Mastodon dividing the attention of those leaving.
If you lived through this period when Facebook took over, like I did, you know how adoption and early adoption work. We are still in the early adoption phase.
More features will be added to Bluesky; the UI will improve, and third-party developers are pouring in because it is a more developer-friendly place to create. Creators are moving in because they want to capture that first wave. They can share external links to their work without it being suppressed because Bluesky is a link-friendly platform.
Matt Karolian on Bluesky:
Traffic from Bluesky to @bostonglobe.com is already 3x that of Threads, and we are seeing 4.5x the conversions to paying digital subscribers.
Advantage to the creators because external links have equal weight and are encouraged, which is unique to Bluesky.
From what I can see, most people I know want to go someplace else other than X. But abandoning a large audience is difficult. Abandoning a large potential audience is difficult.
The average person who pops on and off social media for one hour a day won’t care how bad the state of the service is. They want their fix, and then they get off. They are likely the majority, the people we are supposedly supposed to be waiting for to move. Don’t hold your breath. They will be the last to move.
Leaving is not something you can convince people to do, to abandon that audience. The audience has to abandon that ecosystem naturally.
Eventually the pros will outweigh the cons for the average person. The pros are the features and environment that are created in the other place. Are their friends leaving?
If someone makes the Apollo for Reddit equivalent for social media in a third-party app, game over. Immediate migration.
When the money eventually runs out for X, key features get removed, and/or when ownership changes, people will then leave in mass like they did with MySpace. It is inevitable because they are killing that platform.