Julia Angwin writes:

There is a moment when internet companies get the stink of death on them. For AOL, it was 2003, when it became clear that its users were abandoning its clunky dial-up internet service for far-faster broadband. For Yahoo, it was 2015, when its last-ditch acquisition spree failed and it sold itself to Verizon.

For Meta, that time is now. I believe the company — one of the most powerful media organizations in the world and one of the most valuable members of the S&P 500 — is at the start of a long, slow decline that will trigger aftershocks to our economy and our society.

It may be named Meta, but the company’s biggest asset is still Facebook. Started from a Harvard dorm, the original online social network has dominated our world for two decades. Its three billion users are still bigger than any single country. Its platforms can help sway an election, fuel an insurrection or spark a genocide.

But if you look carefully, you can see chinks in the armor. Meta’s earnings are starting to show the strain from years of growing consumer disaffection and reckless spending. The latest earnings, released on April 29, revealed a dip in user numbers for the first time since it started reporting these figures. And the slumping stock confirms what we have all known in our guts for a while: This is a company entering its zombie era.

Death is different on the internet. Lifeless companies like AOL and Yahoo are still technically with us. You can visit their websites. They have customers. They may even be profitable, as they cut staff and monetize their last remnants of traffic. But they are, as the kids say, peak cringe. Many teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead with an AOL account, a Yahoo email address — or a Facebook profile. [Continue reading…]