3 ms·
A more cogent comparison would include total available markets at the time. 75m MAU in 2008 is very different than 2.6b in 2020.
by ethbro 6y ago
A more cogent comparison would include total available markets at the time.
75m MAU in 2008 is very different than 2.6b in 2020.
- SirensOfTitan 6y agoI wasn't trying to make an exhaustive comparison, but each individual contributes inertia to the market regardless of the total size of the market (see 1 below) The MySpace argument often calls to the transient spirit of social media: one day it's hot, the other it's not. I recall Digg's death too after a controversial redesign. The issue with this argument is that: 1. Numbers not only increase inertia, but social products increase it too. If my friends aren't using a social platform neither am I, usually. 2. Facebook has such a rich culture of A/B testing that they'll never release controversial changes without a deeper understanding of the impact of those changes on engagement. They won't shoot themselves in the foot like Digg did with current leadership. 3. Facebook has a really successful history of acquisitions and its leadership is very aware of social media trends. It catches those trends early. As a consequence of (1), I'd argue that Facebook has a tremendous moat in comparison to its peers: it has a large amount of users who are more likely to stay put. While Facebook also moves slowly as a consequence of (2) often enough, it can move really quickly on producing novel products. Facebook certainly will face challenges in the future, but they're likely to be a lot different at this stage.
- xeromal 6y agoYeah, Facebook is more akin to Google/Microsoft than it is to Myspace.