The Altamont of Freemium Social Media

It’s one story of many finals. The end of unregulated, unsupervised content platforms. The end of personal data as an in fact unregulated currency. The end of no-limits online advertising. The end of the golden decade of Facebook. The end of unlimited believe in big tech of the 2000’s. 2018 means the end for freemium as we knew it. Internet use does change massively as a result. Just some content feels fine. Chronicles and fascinating case study of history making events. Note: Still updating below in 2019 … 2020 … 2021 …

(Please note: This is not necessarily a true 20+ minutes read. There is a lot of annex, as there is an ever growing, continually updated list of troubles & events occuring in the Social Media & Freemium World at the end of this post. Proving my point, day after day …)

Social Media based on freemium strategies disrupted global culture as much as Rock’n’Roll — probably way more. And while physical abuse forced music to change its business ways 50 years ago, 2018 will go down in history as the year data abuse ended Social Media based on freemium strategies in its original form. From unbound innovation to regulated commodity. A watershed moment, happening as we speak.

Social Media based on freemium strategies was the invention of a concept high up on the ladder of groundbreaking innovations. Right on eye level with changes like the invention of film or the creation of public broadcasting. Even the name was excellent if you look at it from a marketing standpoint. From the consumer standpoint, however, it would have been more honest to call it instead lureium. Or maybe baitium. As with everything in life, there is no free lunch in the worlds of data and tech as well. So, from minute one of a “Social Media based on freemium strategies”-model being applied to business concepts, the only goal was to make consumers swallow the bait, log on to a platform or service and then start paying. Sometimes paying with currency. However, mostly paying by providing marketable data generated by the customer’s actions.