It feels like we’re at an inflection point for social media, a moment where there’s a viable opening for a competitor to come in and dilute the power of the incumbents.
But are we really?
Sure, Meta has back-flipped on its moderation standards to appease the incoming president, while Elon Musk has transformed Twitter into a propaganda machine to benefit his own interests, and TikTok is on the way out of the U.S.
We also now have viable competition, in Bluesky, and related, decentralized social apps, that can provide similar functionality to the big corporates.
Yet, even then, historically, major controversies haven’t sparked mass user migrations in the past. And despite many loud complaints, and proclamations of defiance in the face of capitalist agendas, I don’t see any competitors taking any huge chunks of users away from the big players as yet.
Take, for example, Meta, which prompted widespread condemnation with its moderation update last week. Many users have vowed to abandon Meta’s apps in protest, yet Facebook has continued to add users every quarter, even though it’s already surpassed some 3 billion users.
It must be close to saturation point in many regions, and I do think that the time spent in the app must have declined significantly in recent years (Meta hasn’t shared data on time spent in the app since 2016). But everyone still checks into Facebook every day, to ensure that they don’t miss any important updates from family and friends.
Because Facebook has its massive network graph, which connects more people that you actually know than any other platform. That’s an extremely powerful draw, while Meta has also been able to increase time spent in the app in recent years by pushing AI-recommended Reels into people’s feeds.
Sure, its shift back to a bigger focus on politics could alienate some users, but do you really think that they’re going to abandon Facebook entirely? We’ll see when Meta publishes its Q1 usage data, but going on trends, I don’t see there being much, if any, of a shift.
I mean, people didn’t leave after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when it was revealed that Meta had been allowing third-party apps and tools to siphon out user info for whatever purpose they might choose. That’s despite trust in the platform dropping by 66%, so I can’t see this happening this time around either.
Instagram and Threads are also unlikely to be impacted, though the change in political content approach will impact Threads the most. My prediction, however, would be that it will improve the Threads experience, by enabling a broader focus on real-time news discussion, which its limits on politics have impeded thus far.
So if anything, I would guess that Threads will gain more traction as a result, and as an alternative to X, despite stable interest in Bluesky. At 25 million users, Bluesky is the biggest of the decentralized challengers so far, and has the best chance to lead the non-big tech push. But 25 million is only a fraction of Threads’ 300 million users, and 100 million daily actives (and rising). And without a significant shift in momentum, it’s hard to see how it pulls enough users from Meta and X.
X has also maintained its 250 million active users, even if it hasn’t been able to grow that number since November 2022. The flow of users away from the app has seemingly been countered by an influx of Musk supporters, while many sports, gaming, and music communities are still reliant on the platform for real-time updates. As such, I suspect that the anti-Musk disruption has largely settled, with its remaining users accepting of the various changes at the app. Elon’s political commentary will continue to spark smaller waves away from it, though the U.S. election result could end up bringing more people back, and it will remain relevant for hundreds of millions of users.
And then there’s the TikTok ban, and the rise of alternative Chinese apps in its place.
This won’t last, as Lemon8 is also owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, and is likely to be cut off in the U.S. at the same time, or shortly after TikTok, if the sell-off bill is upheld and no other resolution is found. Xiaohongshu will also come under scrutiny if it reaches a certain level of U.S. usage. And even then, Xiaohongshu isn’t designed for American users, and isn’t likely to catch on in any significant way.
Which will drive TikTok users back to IG, or YouTube Shorts, which are the best alternatives to TikTok at this stage. Other options don’t stack up, in terms of reach, monetization potential, etc. And without top creators, other apps won’t pull in enough audience.
Also worth noting that when TikTok was banned in India, where it once had 250 million users, Instagram subsequently saw a record number of new installs in the region.
U.S. trends will likely follow suit, so while many would prefer an alternative, and many will trest out other options, it seems most likely that Meta will be the ultimate winner of a TikTok ban in America.
That’s why Zuckerberg predicted that the company’s change in moderation approach will lead to people leaving its platforms “for virtue signaling”, a comment that sparked much criticism of his attitude on such a sensitive topic.
But what he’s saying is that, historically, people don’t leave Meta’s apps, even if there is a small proponent who’ll make a noise about abandoning them to send a message.
We’ll see how things play out, but there haven’t been any significant shifts as yet which signal that any alternative will gain traction, and that Meta, X, and the other incumbents should be in fear of significant backlash.
Because getting millions or billions of people to change their daily habits is hard, and without a significant proportion of them doing so, that won’t be enough momentum to harm the social media titans.
Really, TikTok is the only app that’s significantly disrupted the industry in the past decade, and until there’s a similar challenger, with similar innovation (TikTok’s algorithmic advancement was a step ahead of the other apps), building a viable alternative will remain largely out of reach.
