Reddit

The problem with (almost) all social media platforms is they need a LOT of users. Because each individual users brings in such a small amount of revenue.

So these companies (running on investor money) go through a deliberate early “growth” stage, where their singular goal is to get as many users as possible. They usually do this by…actually making something people want to use. Plus some addictive tricks thrown in to keep people “engaged”.

Once they have their 100 million users, or whatever number they’re targeting, then the processor of turning it to shit begins. Because now they have the users they need to extract revenue from them. The problem is that growth stage often kills off competitors as well. So now you have a near monopoly tightening the screws on users, who have to just accept it because the cost of moving to an alternative is too high.

But eventually it hits a breaking point. Users jump to something new, and the cycle repeats. The users who stick around with a shit product are the ones who ultimately pay the debts that early users got to enjoy.