Everything comes down to two points, I think, the first, that the new generations have a hard time entering and succeeding in mature social networks, there they feel alienated, therefore, any new place is more attractive. Second, because new places offer the feeling of belonging that those places where the effect of popularity is impossible to achieve.

TikTok and Musical.ly achieved their base of very young people who now all at 17-23 years old already feel that it is their default social network. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are in a downward spiral because the new generations will only join TikTok as the big celebrities will go where their potential audience is.

> However, how do you stay relevant

It's hard. I was a youth worker for a bit. Anything I tried to get them to corporate in they rebelled because it was a "grandpa" thing.

Attention spans just don't exist nowadays. Spending five minutes explaining the manual of a game is over. They won't listen and get bored very quickly even if you get a round in. TikTok appears to mitigates that as you can do your thing in a matter of seconds.

Even the younger adult leaders were struggling to get them engaged. At least football's still a thing.

>However, how do you stay relevant?

You don't. The hip, new thing gets recreated every 5-10 years.

Facebook did it once. First by marketing to college students for the original product (Facebook), then by buying the next big thing (Instagram).

I don't think they're doing it again though, many recent acquisitions (starting from Oculus in 2014) are VR/AR based, and AFAIK they're growing the core Facebook product instead of launching new ones.

My thoughts exactly. My impression is that the key is to get in early while a product's value is rising, then cash out at the last possible second for maximum gain. Then, once you're financially established, you can throw portions of your wealth into equity in later iterations and repeat the cycle.