Big Social Apps Are Not Very Social Anymore
Early Twitter hosted real public conversation, Thompson argues, until scale and algorithms turned feeds into entertainment.
Stratechery · End of the Internet | Stratechery by Ben ThompsonBen Thompson has been publishing online since the summer of 2003, when he started a blog to document a move to Taiwan.
Looking back more than two decades later, after blogs gave way to Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, the longtime tech blogger offered a blunt verdict on what happened to conversation online.
Thompson recalled early Twitter, when "Genuinely interesting conversations happened in public," and an unknown user could answer his way to a wider audience. For a time, he said, followers could become friends.
Then he said it: "Community, sadly, doesn't scale."
What he meant, he argued, was arithmetic. Social media was free and even easier to start than a blog, so posts multiplied far beyond what blogs had produced.
Algorithms started to matter, first at Facebook and later at Twitter, and anyone with prominence had to take a more defensive approach.
Any service open to everyone starts off feeling special and then declines, Thompson argued. Public feeds slowly became entertainment feeds built to maximize engagement.
The endpoint is TikTok, which he called "a social media site with basically zero social component."
That does not mean social networking died, Thompson argued. It moved. Group chats are familiar and high trust, and among the most valuable parts of online life.
Even as tools pull people apart, he argued, the group chat offers a way to reach close contacts whenever needed. What grew was not ever bigger audiences, but countless small groups.
Early social media, even at its best, followed what he called the 99-1 rule: 1 percent spoke, 9 percent commented, and 90 percent lurked.
As Thompson put it, "The magic of group chats is not in giving everyone a voice, but a place where you feel safe to talk."
Questions people ask
If TikTok is not social, what is it?
Mostly a personalized entertainment service. TikTok shows short videos chosen by its recommendation system, and most viewing does not depend on friends or followers. People can comment and share, but watching, not talking with acquaintances, is the main activity.
Why do group chats feel safer than public feeds?
The audience is small, known, and chosen. People know who will read a message, share context and history, and expect a reply. That familiarity raises trust and lowers the fear of being attacked, screenshotted, or shamed by strangers.
Is public conversation online really dead?
No, but it is narrower than it once was. Public replies still happen on X, Instagram, Reddit, and elsewhere, and some writers build audiences there. Thompson’s point is that the liveliest everyday conversation moved to private places, while public feeds reward content that entertains large numbers.