YouTube disallowing adblockers, Reddit charging for API usage, Twitter blocking non-registered users. These events happen almost at the same time. Is this one of the effects of the tech bubble burst?

  • WiseThat@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    That and market share. Between 2007 and now, a website could reliably grow as new people got connected to the internet and as internet usage naturally grew. Up till recently, a large proportion of people either didn’t use the internet at all, or had the internet, but didn’t use much. Prior to 2020 I knew lots of friends and family who simply did not own a home computer or maybe had like one laptop for the whole family (and a bunch of phones).

    During that era, the attention was all on getting new users in the door. Make a good, cheap/free product, and people will come, if you make the best site, people will find you.

    But NOW, most people already are using the internet like 14 hours a day and have become full netizens and companies are already gigantic monopolies (Youtube does’t have a viable competitor, for example). If companies want to keep growing, they can’t rely on new blood, they need to pivot to harvesting more from the people they already have.