God I hate articles like this. If you want to make a myspace clone, then make one. No-one is stopping you.
The problem is that people didn't like MySpace. It looked like crap and giving people that level of control made them feel bad. Only a few fearless kids actually made the gloriously crappy content you admire.
The other problem is that the Internet is well-settled terrain now, and users have many many options about where to hang their hat(s) and what they do there. Try convincing a Medium author that HTML is a good authoring tool.
This article is the Internet version of "good old days" nostalgia, which is, ironically, retrograde and horrifying. One important exception: if the internet ever deprecates the tools needed to make another myspace (http 1.1, html, css, available ip addresses, ability to host a durable process) then you'd have my full-throated support. And of course you're allowed to like old things that failed because of market pressure. Just don't fool yourself that the world is worse because the thing you like fell out of fashion. As much as I hate to admit it, the world is better off without coin-op arcades.
You make it seem like todays internet monopolies exist because of all the platform there are, they are the most well-designed ones, and they would simply be replaced if a better product came along.
I disagree with that, youtube for example is not the prevalent video platform today because it is better than its competitors. Youtube today is absolutely terrible.
But it does not get replaced, because it is the established platform, and using a competitor is suicide because your content will never get any traction.
So we are stuck with a horribly monopolized web, where the established websites can become very shitty, but you have to stay on them because everyone else is.
The phrase you're looking for is "network effect". And it is indeed a real thing [0]. But I find it ironic you're implying it's implacable on a thread about MySpace.
>and using a competitor is suicide because your content will never get any traction
You can post on multiple platforms, you know. Content creators aren't stupid. They post on whichever platform is buzzing. It's their day job and the most popular ones know what they are doing than any of us.
The problem is that people didn't like MySpace. It looked like crap and giving people that level of control made them feel bad. Only a few fearless kids actually made the gloriously crappy content you admire.
The other problem is that the Internet is well-settled terrain now, and users have many many options about where to hang their hat(s) and what they do there. Try convincing a Medium author that HTML is a good authoring tool.
This article is the Internet version of "good old days" nostalgia, which is, ironically, retrograde and horrifying. One important exception: if the internet ever deprecates the tools needed to make another myspace (http 1.1, html, css, available ip addresses, ability to host a durable process) then you'd have my full-throated support. And of course you're allowed to like old things that failed because of market pressure. Just don't fool yourself that the world is worse because the thing you like fell out of fashion. As much as I hate to admit it, the world is better off without coin-op arcades.