Thought-provoking piece. In addition to your theories, I’d add that profitability over transparency and privacy, rapid UI/UX changes that had little improvement over the previous layout, blatant theft of other social media offerings at the expense of what drove users to the platform in the first place, and omnipotent leaders who paint with broad, destructive strokes, are additional contributors to their decline.

Social media used to be about sticking it to the man. Now it’s a question of which Big Brother to stay with.