Is Facebook the new MySpace? | THE TERRITORY news from Misiones

Facebook is for old people. When the public hangs that label on a social network, it is a death sentence that is difficult to commute. The decline of Mark Zuckerberg’s company is more than evident, precipitating its value by several hundred billion dollars and putting nearly 11,000 people out on their feet. As a definitive thrust, the commitment to the metaverse does not end up capturing the interest of investors or users. Is Facebook the new MySpace?

Younger readers are likely to either not know what MySpace is or only have a vague idea. This social network pioneered what was called Web 2.0 –as Meta now wants to be Web 3.0- and was the star of one of the first episodes of hyper-growth of users. However, that platform failed to maintain that competitive advantage derived from its pioneering status and, although it has not definitively died, it has been dying for years.

MySpace was born in 2003 as a platform on which music was mainly consumed and in just two years it was already acquired by News Corp -owned by magnate Rupert Murdoch- for 530 million dollars; operation that was not exempt from critical voices that slipped the possibility of a bubble. Groups like the Black Eyed Peas, REM or Nine Inch Nails released their albums on this platform.

History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes, both in the rises and in the falls. MySpace would end up being devoured by the rest of the social networks -Zuckerberg would begin his adventure in 2004-, as in a certain way is happening to Facebook.

Zuckerberg’s company continues to accumulate economic sanctions imposed by regulators, generates mistrust and leads manipulation scandals. The survival of the social network has some inertia on the part of its users who, indeed, can no longer be described as young. That demographic is found on other networks, not Facebook.

Facebook stopped innovating a long time ago, limiting itself to plagiarizing features from other social networks or instant messaging applications. The user experience that matters so much to these types of companies has stagnated, it is not attractive and, to make matters worse, one finds fewer and fewer people with whom one wishes to run into and more with whom one would prefer not to see even in paint.

So yes, everything indicates that Facebook is the new MySpace. It’s not all going to be bad news.

By David Bollero
For Público.es