What you described sounds exactly like the arc of Facebook, only forced to its natural conclusion at a much faster pace. FB started as a network for college st

What you described sounds exactly like the arc of Facebook, only forced to its natural conclusion at a much faster pace. FB started as a network for college students. Then once it expanded to the general public it turned into a gold rush of businesses trying to grab attention. FB slowly turned into the AOL of its day--a captive portal where people largely ignored the rest of the web. Why check the news on a publisher's site when I can just scan headlines while waiting for my friends' updates? I remember a time before every website decided they needed a Twitter/Facebook button, before coffee cups were plastered with those app icons next to the store's brand. The whole thing seemed strange and desperate as it was happening. Now the lag between "cool new social medium" to "spam/meme repository" is fast enough that I don't even have to bother. Anything fun and user-focused on the web ends up getting bought and repurposed to serve ads.