I was just chatting about the “golden years” of Facebook with a friend today. I think it was about 10 years ago. Maybe we’re over-glamorizing the past, but at least the way we recall it:

Around 2012-2014, the newsfeed mostly was just updates from your friends with some ads sprinkled in. Everyone was on Facebook, so if you were hosting a social event, you could just invite everyone on Facebook and they’d hear about it. Birthdays were great because everyone would wish you happy birthday and you would do the same for them. There was a location-based search feature, where you could travel to basically any city and search your friends list to see who was there.

I felt closer to a lot of old friends from growing up than almost any other time, because suddenly everyone was on Facebook and it was super easy to catch up with someone I hadn’t talked to in years.

That’s all vanished these days, sadly. Social events are organized by email again (which is fine but less convenient). I’ve lost touch with old high school friends again because nobody uses Facebook anymore except for a few die hard holdouts.

I really remember thinking “Man, Facebook is just so dominant, I don’t see how they could blow it.”

Turns out, if you keep feeding the growth monster in search of more and more “engagement” (enragement?), eventually the growth monster destroys you.