AOL was a walled garden that survived first by convincing people that there was no real Internet outside of it, and then by trying to pretend that the "Internet" was just a part of AOL.
Eventually, people caught on that there was in fact this giant Internet out there all by itself, and AOL wasn't technically required to access it. So people left.
Facebook, however, is the entire Facebook. There is no giant social entity outside of it that people are being kept away from. It's an end product.
So sure, somebody may make a bigger, better one. But they're not going to suddenly remove the blindfold and expose Facebook users to the Truth, because it's just plain not out there.
AOL was a walled garden that survived first by convincing people that there was no real Internet outside of it, and then by trying to pretend that the "Internet" was just a part of AOL.
Eventually, people caught on that there was in fact this giant Internet out there all by itself, and AOL wasn't technically required to access it. So people left.
Facebook, however, is the entire Facebook. There is no giant social entity outside of it that people are being kept away from. It's an end product.
So sure, somebody may make a bigger, better one. But they're not going to suddenly remove the blindfold and expose Facebook users to the Truth, because it's just plain not out there.