Social media has evolved over the past two decades from a way for college students to stay in touch to a space where brands and influencers dominate feeds with sponsored posts and ads. As a result, the platforms are becoming less social and more corporate. This shift has implications for social networking companies and raises questions about the future of online platforms. Many users are seeking community-oriented sites and apps that are focused on specific hobbies and issues, rather than spending all their time on a few big social networks.
Some social networking companies are exploring new avenues of business, such as Twitter, which is pushing people and brands to become subscribers for a fee, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is moving into the metaverse. For users, this means gravitating toward smaller, more focused sites and apps like Mastodon, Nextdoor, and Truth Social. The future of social media is not about choosing one network to rule them all but about being a member of multiple different communities.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey predicted the shift to smaller, more focused networks years ago, and academics and technologists are now focusing on them. They suggest that future companies could run small networks at low costs and create an app that allows people to switch among the sites they use. Small networks create forums for specific communities, including those who are marginalized, and relieve social pressure on younger people. However, finding newer, smaller networks can be difficult because they are obscure, but Mastodon and Reddit often act as gateways to smaller communities.
