The resilient services are those that occupy a non-gimmicky niche. I’ll explain the difference between a real niche and a contrived or gimmicky one.
For example, YouTube is the video site. That’s its niche.
TikTok occupies a more gimmicky niche; short-form videos with a gazillion little features to make it more fun. People may (will) eventually get tired of it. The funny thing is they may move to a service with a very similar offering but with a different style and gimmicks.
The ones that don’t fill a niche at all are also less resilient following this thinking, though other factors like being utterly entrenched (facebook) may keep them around a long time.
Another site that fills a real niche well is Instagram. It’s the pictures site. It’s nice to just scroll and see pictures, though they’ve diversified with reels and video content (which may actually be a bad idea in the long run).
Another classic example of a gimmicky niche service was Vine, though I preferred that to TikTok (which I don’t use aside from having played with it for a week).
I’m not saying that non-niche services can’t last, but niche services definitely have inherent advantage for longevity because they fill a simple need and it’s hard or not constructive even for challengers to differentiate.
Short form videos I think are here to stay - they really are sort of in between a pictures site and a long form video site like youtube or a streaming service like Netflix.
That’s a good point. Perhaps the image and video sites will eventually blend into hosting both — and short form video as well naturally. YouTube and Instagram both have short form video features and my youtube feed already has images amongst other things like polls.
For example, YouTube is the video site. That’s its niche.
TikTok occupies a more gimmicky niche; short-form videos with a gazillion little features to make it more fun. People may (will) eventually get tired of it. The funny thing is they may move to a service with a very similar offering but with a different style and gimmicks.
The ones that don’t fill a niche at all are also less resilient following this thinking, though other factors like being utterly entrenched (facebook) may keep them around a long time.
Another site that fills a real niche well is Instagram. It’s the pictures site. It’s nice to just scroll and see pictures, though they’ve diversified with reels and video content (which may actually be a bad idea in the long run).
Another classic example of a gimmicky niche service was Vine, though I preferred that to TikTok (which I don’t use aside from having played with it for a week).
I’m not saying that non-niche services can’t last, but niche services definitely have inherent advantage for longevity because they fill a simple need and it’s hard or not constructive even for challengers to differentiate.