An Elegy.

Have you been on Byte lately? If you have, you might have noticed some changes. Longer videos. A drop in content volume. Bug-addled UI. My friends, it feels like Byte is on the way out, soon to become the vacant Pier 1 storefront of short-form video apps.

If you haven’t been on Byte lately—if you, like the VAST majority of social users, ignored Byte when it debuted in January of this year—then you have probably missed its strange and steady decline. I became a fan of this niche app about a month after its launch. The strong Vine vibes. The anti-TikTok sentiment. The hypnotic looping quality of six-second videos. What wasn’t to love? And while I’m sad to see it going the way of our polar ice caps, I believe Byte can teach us a great deal about the state of social in 2020 and might even signal a win for platforms becoming more progressive.

Byte is the brainchild of Vine co-creator Dom Hoffmann. And at first blush, the platform feels very much like Vine in the age of TikTok: short Vine-esque videos (six seconds in length, then eight, now 16) with an interface that roughly mirrors TikTok’s. But beyond the broad strokes, Byte is much its own platform. The tone of Bytes are strongly reminiscent of Vines, though there is a prominent focus with the former on animation, found footage, ambient video, beats and other more ”artistic” uses of the medium. And while the home screen and tab layout look much like TikTok, the discovery and channel model of Byte is quite different. Too, the in-app camera tools are positively Spartan when compared to the salmagundi of filters, effects and other features offered in TikTok.

At its core, Byte feels different. A social video service designed to concentrate on content and artistry above all, Byte was birthed inside a utopian ideal of a space for makers, by makers—a space where creators would guide the development of the app and share in the profits from brands buying ad space. But this shining vision, like the advertising dollars needed to support it, never came about.

Byte was, for a fleeting moment, full of fresh, exciting content and poised for greatness. In terms of downloads, out the gate Byte outperformed TikTok and Vine (in its first week). Partnerships with prominent creatives and influencers helped build community, as did a nostalgia for shorter, simpler videos among an audience still mourning the loss of Vine in 2016. And with the learnings of Vine in the creator’s back pocket, surely this endeavor would succeed where Vine failed. But almost from “go,” it was clear Byte wasn’t living up to the hype—that the platform and its funding model relied on a foundationally dated understanding of the relationship between brands and users in 2020.

On its face, the notion of a social platform where users build up a sea of content for free, brands take notice of the user volume, ad/influencer dollars roll in and users begin to monetize said sea all seems quite plausible. Familiar even. Isn’t that (approximately) the story of YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and other social media where a select echelon of content creators make a modest living?

This thinking, though, is based on a very 2016 understanding of social media. If we step back and think about the evolution of users and our social channels, we started off focusing on user-as-individual: platforms like Myspace and Facebook allowed you to showcase yourself, your interests, your friends, your poorly designed HTML page backgrounds, all with the goal of creating content centered on who you are. Then we moved to platforms built around user-as-curator. Facebook began to allow you to share more types of content. Tumblr took off. Platforms where you could quickly share articles and POV like Twitter emerged. So too did homes for memes, niche videos and controversial opinions like 4Chan, Imgur and Reddit. Even Pinterest was a significant voice in that movement. Then there was a shift to user-as-creator. Platforms came to showcase media made by its members and had built-in tools where users could capture their own photos or short videos. Blogging nearly became cool again. And rather than pulling together your favorite flotsam from all corners of the web, you yourself were now a media maker, adding to this growing mass of content that platforms soon recognized as product. YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and Medium all reached prominence, as did online meme generators and photo and video editing tools designed for amateur creatives. It was in this stage that Vine was born, and in its later ebbing that Vine died. 

But today, we’re in a new age. While users still regard themselves as individuals, curators and creators and subscribe to platforms accordingly, a growing number of social acolytes are thinking of themselves as brands. The age of user-as-brand has come about while the line between average app-users and businesses blurs. Every day we watch more and more among us find fiscal success with digital content, taking their personal brands online or hawking wares for others. In 2020, most of us are dating / are related to / have sat on a long plane ride next to a successful influencer. And we all view social more as a marketplace than just an arena to idly give away your best content. There is money on the table, and this generation of users is waking up to that fact, no longer allowing social platforms to build on the backs of their photos and videos, their comments and quips, but instead understanding that both their content and their clout have transactional value and it’s time to start. getting. paid.

As users ascend (or descend depending on your perspective) to the level of brand, so too are brands behaving more like users, by engaging in content marketing. Participating in TikTok challenges. Pushing out content that doesn’t directly promote their brand but instead participates in social conversations. That asks questions. That offers their perspective on social issues. That allows themselves to be a little vulnerable in the digital sphere. And this shift is massive. It’s good news for all you digital marketers out there, not only because there is no more critical moment for your business to be online and authentically engaging with social media, but also because Jane Q. TikToker is increasingly comfortable seeing brands in her feed as content creators rather than advertisers and will go to social before a website or (Zuck-forbid) the phone in order to learn more about a company.

This softening of the borders between company and consumer, the other platforms get it. Youtube, Instagram and Snapchat have all made strides to see influencers paid. Hell, Vine, for a time, encouraged this model of brands partnering with makers over platform-wide ads. Facebook and Instagram are steadily improving features for businesses who have a presence on their platform and/or are selling directly to consumers in-app. TikTok even creates pathways to payment, where influencers can partner with brands or viewers can fund their favorite creators (yes, clumsily, via PayPal, by way trophy, by way of crystal or gift, by way of coin, by way of wallet, by way of actual currency). A key element of TikTok’s success is, in fact, that promise of influencer-status, or at least a taste of evanescent virality—contests, hashtag challenges, complicated algorithms, careful rules all designed so that any user with a masterful bit of video can find millions of views and (hopefully) a few dollars. And of course Twitch, Patreon and OnlyFans have long relied on this model, creating spaces where fair pay for creatives is part of the conversation as soon as you walk through the door, rather than clumsily shoehorning it in as an afterthought or worse, as an unwanted user demand.

But Byte missed all this, hoping for a user-base drawn to the novelty and nostalgia of their platform rather than the possibility of compensation. They weren’t able to pay creatives up front or secure brand partnerships, and people weren’t willing to stick around while numbers grew and advertisers lined up. And, to be clear, advertisers were not lining up. There were disappointing metrics and lukewarm content, but, most significantly, Byte was not a welcoming space for brands to play. No business accounts, no e-commerce tools, no hashtag challenges for them to join in on. For content creators and brands, there are too many other platforms out there where you can take your content marketing or sketch comedy or dance crew or presidential lipsyncing or anime or twerking pet duck and find compensation. Or at least an audience.

It’s easy to write off the end of Byte as a win for capitalism. As death to a creative safe space that bears an elegy akin to the many for Vine in 2016. But that may be giving Byte more credit than it deserves. Byte, it seems, was founded in a mindset a few years past expiry—a mindset so set on not making the mistakes of Vine that it ignored the new world growing up around it. A more transactional digital world, yes, but also one that better serves its creatives. In seven years, social has changed radically, as have the content purveyors it relies on. And while more brands are in the social space and more users are behaving as brands, that isn’t strictly a move to consumerism. In many instances, social media enables redistribution of wealth and undreamt-of opportunity for young creatives. It provides access to audiences and business resources within a more equitable system. Social enables historically marginalized creatives, brands and business-owners a place at the same table as Fortune 500 companies, all within this nascent system. This, decidedly, flawed system. This system fractured in the same way our other social and economic systems are. But, this system that is young enough and responsive enough to listen to its users and grow in a direction less motivated by hegemony and history. To grow towards just treatment, fair compensation and an end to platforms built on the backs of content creators. Whether it will or won’t remains to be seen, but platforms like Byte not surviving might be a sign of hope.