12 predictions for the consumer internet in 2021
I like to end each year by surveying you all about your predictions for social networks and the broader consumer internet in the 12 months to come. One, it's a lot of fun. And two, a year later I get to read the predictions back and feel extremely dumb. Our collective guesses for 2020 weren't terrible, exactly - we nailed Libra (er, Diem) failing to launch, the rise of Discord, the splinternet accelerating, and a total stalemate on Section 230 reform.
But we missed a lot, too: a rise in curated experiences did not cause algorithms to fade into the background"; a deepfake app did not go mainstream in the United States; and Twitch streaming did not power the rise of Oculus. (But the pandemic sort of did? It powered the rise of Twitch,...