> Facebook brought a vastly better user experience that seems mundane in retrospect but it won because it was so much better.
My impression is more that FB won because of Zuck's talent/luck/vision for weird acquisitions (instagram, whatsapp) that paid off in ways nobody foresaw. Facebook was by no means the clear winner then, and I would argue most of it's success since then has been first-mover in global markets. FB engagement has been in decline in the US for years.
Tax rates were higher but there were far more deductions. The effective rate was similar to that of today.
60-70 years ago a man with an HS diploma could support a family due to massive demand for labor. This was mainly because America was the economic engine that provided for the reconstruction of the world after WW2. Go back another 15 years to pre-WW2 and shit was pretty bleak even with high taxes.
> You mention FB. With network effects, it is inevitable that there will be a few large dominate social media companies. If it wasn't Zuckerberg it would have been someone else.
It was someone else, it was MySpace and Friendster and other trashy shit. Facebook brought a vastly better user experience that seems mundane in retrospect but it won because it was so much better. Like it or not, Facebook did innovate a lot early on and had a unique, clean, consistent experience. They made social media mainstream. It was not a given this would happen.