Musk owns Twitter now. It is his baby. Maybe more like a step-child, but he molds it now. There have been changes. It is exciting to consider what comes next. It’s refreshing in comparison to what has felt like a static social media landscape. The fun comparison is to Facebook, which plods along and one wonders who uses it anymore (old people). Musk and Zuck are an interesting contrast themselves, but they point to the different states of the two entities. Facebook has lost its zip while Twitter has an opportunity ahead of it for a rebirth.

Facebook has slipped in being the it social media space for any discourse or fun user experience. Its history is kind of funny since it became the new, nice suburb after MySpace. Really though, what it enjoyed was being for college kids (sucking in new users) and signaling to the broader public that young, hip people were there. Once everyone’s mom signed on, they were going to have growth, but then of course, push away some younger users. Facebook was aware of the slippage in youth enrollment over a decade ago, and made up for this by acquiring Instagram.

Like cigarette sales, one has to catch them young before anyone else does. Cable television has learned this fact. This is behind their push of TikTok like content on both Instagram and Facebook in a desperate, Boomerish attempt to be cool. Facebook’s other fatal error was going all in on misinformation censorship and antagonizing their audience. Despite open censorship of right wing content, left wing partisans would point out how the most popular, political content on Facebook was Ben Shapiro or Breitbart. That had nothing to do with Facebook the entity leaning right and everything to do with their audience of Boomer users plus fewer right wing outlets. Spitting on Boomers hurt Facebook. Boomers are flush with money to spend, so Facebook will slump along shearing sheep but any chance for a more dynamic future is gone. META was a huge flop. Ad revenue decreased in ‘22. What’s the plan? Posting with dead relatives as the user base ages? These are not the actions nor the focus of a growth stock.

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