Rise, Marginalization & Return of the Niche Internet

Niche communities built around deep interest in one subject have been marginalized by ad-driven platforms, though the text claims they can return stronger thanks to recent changes in technology and business models. It traces how Yahoo shifted from a curated list toward mainstream traffic, and how MySpace and Facebook kept users on their sites by limiting external links to show more ads. The text argues that ad-based models lean toward mainstream audiences and will likely penalize external links, and it notes that Reddit's revenue is 150 times smaller than Meta's.