The Era of Many Social Media Platforms Has Begun

Written By Andy Lutzky

Mastodon is one of many social platforms to experience meaningful growth. (Credit: DALL-E2)

I hypothesized that the future of the internet will see an explosion of social media platforms, spawning from a splintering of the internet at an infrastructural and cultural level. 

While few, if any, of these platforms will see the kind of financial success of the dominant platforms of 2010-2020, many will attract an audience big enough to survive and make money. 

Because of this, I believe that the era of mass-appeal social networks is coming to an end, and the eyeballs, attention and dollars that fueled the rise of some of the most profitable companies in world history will atomize across this upcoming explosion of platforms.

While I imagined that text-based, “Web 2.0” social media networks like Twitter would eventually leak users, I certainly didn’t imagine that Twitter’s new owner would accelerate this process by pushing more than a million users away from his platform within about a week. 

Sure, you could call Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter the most successful user acquisition project in Mastodon’s history. But to make this a story about Mastodon, as so many pundits have, misses the larger point: Mastodon is but one of many, many platforms to experience meaningful, sustainable growth, and one of the many that will likely hang around in this new middle class of social media platforms.

Putting aside the mega-giants like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and (for now) Twitter, look at the range of new platforms that have started, and somewhat succeeded, in recent years:

This non-exhaustive list doesn’t even include existing upper-middle class platforms like Reddit and Tumblr, each of which attract dozens of millions of users; also-rans like Clubhouse, Parler, Triller and Truth Social; yet-to-be-fully-launched, buzzy platforms like Cohost; newsletter platforms like Substack and Puck; and many more out there.

(It also doesn’t address the explosion of social platforms in China and greater Asia, which I’ll tackle in a future post.)

Already, it’s likely that more social platforms than ever before are finding a meaningful enough audience to monetize, either through subscriptions, ad revenue, or both. While it remains to be seen whether any of these platforms can find enough revenue to become a big business, the opportunity to be a viable business in social media has never been better.

As noted by one of my favorite writers, Ben Thompson of Stratechery, in his article Meta Myths (10/31/22, subscription required): while the common belief is that platforms like TikTok are stealing users away from existing social networks like Meta’s platforms, what’s really happening is far different: 

“TikTok usage is certainly usage that Meta would prefer happen on their platforms; what seems clear, though, is that short-form videos are growing the overall market for user-generated content. In other words, TikTok isn’t eating Meta’s usage, but rather growing the overall pie.”

In fact, lost in the negative headlines about Meta is that the company’s platforms are still adding users: as noted by Thompson:

  • “The company is up to 2.93 billion Daily Active Users (DAUs), an increase of 50 million, and 3.71 billion Monthly Active Users (MAUs), an increase of 60 million.”

  • Facebook increased its DAUs by 16 million (to 1.98 billion) and its MAUs by 24 million (to 2.96 billion); while most in the growth was in Asia-Pacific and elsewhere in the world, the US and Europe were flat - not declining. It’s not losing users, at least not yet.”

  • Reels is growing. Per Mark Zuckerberg’s latest earnings: “There are now more than 140 billion Reels plays across Facebook and Instagram each day. That’s a 50% increase from six months ago.”

Putting this all together, we have a perfect storm of conditions for the emergence of new social media platforms. Never before has it been more viable for a social media platform to attract users and have a pathway to become a profitable business. While existing mega-platforms are certainly vulnerable, and in some cases (though not all) losing users, the newest generation of platforms is expanding social media’s reach, rather than simply siphoning users from one platform to another. 

And the current economic climate, pushing large tech companies to lay off tens of thousands of talented workers, leave legions of experienced tech veterans (some of which are the most talented, well-known leadership of the existing social media companies) entering a tough job market. While investment capital is certainly harder to come by due to rising interest rates, fresh social media ideas from well-respected veterans + a quickly hirable, talented workforce might convince skittish investors to back a few projects.

How might this play out in our everyday lives? I anticipate in the coming years that the average American will inhabit between 3-5 platforms.

  • Everyone will inhabit at least one of the broad-reach, “Web 2.0” platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.) to retain connection to their existing networks, posts, photos, and data. These platforms might not suit their most desired mode of expression, but (at least for the next few years) staying current on these platforms will feel somewhat mandatory due to their reach, cultural importance, and existing networks.

  • Most people already use one of the community-centric platforms like WhatApp, Telegram, Slack and Discord; I expect many people will main one of these platforms as well, particularly for people who have interest in niche, community-driven topics, like sports or kinds of art, or to stay in touch with a specific community (family, coworkers, fantasy football leagues, etc.)

  • The influx of young people to newer platforms will drive more people, young and old, to experiment with the new platforms. This is where things will get interesting. People will pick and choose the platforms that best suit their preferred modes of expression and consumption. If you’re not as image-driven, perhaps you’ll be more drawn to something like Hive or CounterSocial. If you’re more into the journalism scene, you might inhabit Post or Mastodon. If you like audio and video, it might be something else. As one or more of these platforms gain more popularity, they will gain some of the reach and cultural importance of the Web 2.0 platforms.

I look at 2026 as the year where the new platforms will begin to take meaningful cultural importance from the Web 2.0 platforms. Why 2026? 

Since roughly the first Obama presidential election, election years have served as something of a barometer of the mainstream appeal for the latest social media platforms, technologies and trends. Excusing the massive oversimplifications on this list, a reminder of some of the dominant storylines of election seasons dating back to the Obama era:

While some networks like Discord and BeReal might yet play a role in the 2024 Presidential elections, there isn’t enough time before then for most new platforms emerging now to gather enough of an audience to truly matter in time. The current economic climate will also slow the growth of new platforms for at least the next year or so.

That points to the 2026 midterms as the next major milestone and test moment for the upcoming phase of social media platforms. Exciting!

I’ve previously shared what innovations I hope to see in these emerging social platforms:

  • Community-based platforms are in their infancy, and I expect a slew of “Discord for X” startups that more fully incorporate elements of video and audio (and that reach a wider audience than Clubhouse).

  • In the meantime, Discord is not standing still: it’s clearly moving in on Twitch’s turf. As Twitch alienates its core gaming audience, could Discord become a community + streaming, pan-platform gaming operating system? Importantly, if it does, then what? (I wonder if Discord would try its hand at creating its own games - going back to their roots.)

  • The relative success (thus far) of Patreon, OnlyFans, Substack and other creator economy companies, combined with the collapse of Twitter, begs the question of where creators will gather their communities. While many have jumped to Discord, which of the creator economy companies will be the first to try to retain those communities on their platforms?

  • I’m interested in the “in-between point” of the current state of avatar-based social networking and Meta’s far-off vision of the metaverse. On one hand, it’s not a matter of “if” on the Metaverse, but more like “when”. On the other, I remain skeptical that Meta’s interpretation of the Metaverse will succeed, or even be viable within the next decade. But Meta’s popularization of the Metaverse has reinvigorated idea of avatar-based, virtual world social networking - which is more than a decade old thanks to services like Second Life, but has seen innovation in the last few years with the rise of V-Tubers.

This period of platform evolution and complexity will make it harder than ever for brands and advertisers to decide where to place their dollars (to say nothing of the painful collapse of terrestrial TV and the coming consolidation of streaming platforms). Brands will need to maintain a level of agility and willingness to test that is hard to imagine in a tough economic climate - a tough ask for most brands and borderline impossible for many. This is part of why I believe the next few years will benefit the largest brands with existing resources.

Where brands place their money will play an important role in what platforms succeed and what platforms don’t, even as the platforms experiment with subscription programs to lessen their dependence on traditional advertising. Which platforms will build the first/best onramps for brands to test? In an era of highly atomized target audiences, brands will need the help of the platforms, especially at first, to ensure that their advertisements and partnerships are both reaching their desired consumers, and are effective.

Further, one of the biggest takeaways from the first phase of social networking is the important of brand safety for advertisers. Which of the new platforms will take this to heart the best/the most?

Finally, what US state will be the first to try to ban a specific social media platform from its residents, and how quickly will a replacement solution emerge to fill the void? Which sitting politician will be the first to launch such a solution through one of their media companies? (essentially becoming the first state-backed social media platform?) 

Plenty more to say on this topic, but, suffice it to say, don’t be fooled by the run of tech layoffs: we’re in for an interesting few years in the social network sector.

Andy Lutzky
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