Pandemic delusions and overhiring seem like the main issue here. Tech companies saw the level of success the pandemic brought (thanks to the pandemic lockdowns,

Pandemic delusions and overhiring seem like the main issue here. Tech companies saw the level of success the pandemic brought (thanks to the pandemic lockdowns, lack of alternatives and rise in remote work), and assumed that was the new status quo. They went big, hired a lot of people, took advantage of government policies to ease the effects of the pandemic, etc, and then got caught unaware* when things went back to normal. Adding to this, it's likely the effects were made worse by people getting bored or burnt out by their products/services too. When you use social media or other tech products for a few hours a day (or perhaps a few minutes at a time at various intervals), they're great. When you have nothing to do but use them for like, 12+ hours a day due to lockdowns, the appeal wears down fast. So in addition to the 'well, we have nothing else to do' crowd ditching these products the minute the real world opened up again, a lot of the existing crowd likely drifted away too. People who were regulars on Twitter/Instagram/Reddit/Discord/YouTube/whatever become far less active post lockdowns, and it seems like these companies are feeling that. * Well maybe not unaware. More suffered the curse of short term thinking all public companies seem to suffer from, since the accepted attitude seems to be about chasing gold rushes and doing what everyone else in your industry is doing, no matter how irrational or unsustainable it might be.