ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Friedberg
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Friedberg @ 00:06:47Right
tech
Over the coming years, social-media-style 'town square' platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) will continue to face viable alternative competitors (such as Parler, Rumble, etc.), demonstrating that no single company will maintain an unchallenged monopoly in this category.
it's really clear. I think it's a really clear, supporting fact that there are going to be alternatives and that these what we thought were monopolies and what kind of became digital town squares and almost infrastructure are really just application layers. They're editorialized and there are going to be competitors.View on YouTube
Explanation

The prediction claimed that in the following years, social‑media 'town square' platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) would not remain unchallenged monopolies and that there would be ongoing, viable competitors (including new ones), showing these services are 'just application layers' with alternatives.

Evidence since late 2022 supports this:

  • Twitter/X now faces multiple direct text‑based rivals. Meta launched Threads in July 2023 explicitly as a “Twitter competitor,” quickly surpassing 70 million signups in its first days and later reaching hundreds of millions of active users, making it a serious alternative for news- and text‑centric social posting. (cnbc.com) Bluesky, launched in 2023 and opened fully in 2024, similarly positions itself as a micro‑blogging rival to X and has grown to millions of users and significant institutional adoption (e.g., the European Central Bank joining to diversify away from X). (en.wikipedia.org) Alt‑tech platforms like Truth Social also continue to operate with millions of monthly active users as Twitter/X alternatives, particularly for specific political communities. (en.wikipedia.org)

  • YouTube and Facebook never achieved uncontested 'town square' monopolies. Video and social posting are now heavily fragmented: YouTube competes with TikTok and Rumble for creator and viewer attention, while Facebook competes with Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, and others. A recent Pew‑style snapshot shows U.S. adults using a range of platforms—YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Reddit, X, Threads, Bluesky, Truth Social—rather than any single dominant 'town square.' (thedailybeast.com)

  • Structural implication – no unchallenged monopoly. By 2025, for the core 'town square' use case (public, text‑ or video‑based discourse at scale), users and institutions can and do choose among several large networks (X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) plus niche but persistent alternatives (Mastodon, Bluesky, Truth Social, Rumble, others). This matches Friedberg’s claim that what were once seen as monopolistic, infrastructure‑like 'town squares' are in practice application‑layer services subject to competitive entry and user switching.

Given the presence and growth of multiple credible competitors across the major social‑media categories, and clear erosion of any notion that one firm holds an unchallenged monopoly in the 'town square' space by 2025, Friedberg’s prediction is best judged as essentially correct.