> so many factors at play like lack of alternatives you don't take into account It looks as though there are no real alternatives now but that wasn't the case

> so many factors at play like lack of alternatives you don't take into account It looks as though there are no real alternatives now but that wasn't the case when Facebook was starting out. It was much smaller than MySpace, and Google's Orkut got bigger faster, for example. Later, it had competition from many other rivals including Google+. There's only a "lack of alternatives" to Facebook's UI because Facebook already won all those battles.