Look at today’s news about Yahoo! (2017-01-09) — they’re selling (to Verizon), rebranding their parent company (to “Altaba”!), and CEO Marissa Meyer is out.
It’s easy to forget, but exactly 10 years ago today (2007-01-09), Steve Jobs announced the iPhone (which went on to be the most successful product in the history of products), and Yahoo! was at that time considered important enough to deserve a spot on that stage. Fast-forward 10 years and Yahoo! is a punchline. (Maybe leaking 1.5 Billion user accounts and “forgetting” to mention it for a couple of years has something to do with that, but Yahoo!’s been irrelevant a lot longer than that.)
Platforms come and go
Even huge, household-name platforms disappear. They don’t have to fail to fail you, either.
- business models and priorities change
- Communities evolve — the trolls move in (and sometimes they buy it)
- Companies go out of fashion — remember MySpace? The Twitter exodus in late 2022 lead to the rise of Bluesky and Threads, neither of which have new business models or new ideas.
These companies don’t factor-in your interests when they make decisions.
But don’t they own all of the eyeballs!?
Sure, publish your essays, tutorials, experiences, stories, photos, and videos elsewhere! There’s nothing wrong with that. It may even help build an audience.
They will, however, monetize your access (to “your” audience). Facebook only shows your posts to 10–15% of your followers unless you pay. Instagram will algorithmically suppress posts/reels/stories that link away from Instagram. Restricting click-/tapable links to the “link in bio” may have started as a spam-control feature, but it’s just control — a yoke.
Remember:
- you’re not their customer (unless you’re paying for ads or reach); the people paying them to run ads against content generated by users (for free!) are their customers
- they don’t pay you (even though you’ve helped feed and grow their brand, which is worth billions to them)
- they do not have your long-term interests at heart.
Keep high-quality, offline copies of everything you publish (especially visual media) and hedge your bets. How?
Own it
You have a website. Use it. Own it. Own the domain. Own and publish your own content. It’s all you. Make it yours. Don’t just give it away for free.