New York Times staff writer Mike Isaac has written a blog post in which he argues that ‘the permanent social internet is dying.’ That we are increasingly abandoning platforms and formats that create a permanent record of our posts.

Instead, he suggests, we now prefer the Snapchat model of posts which are here now, gone tomorrow.

Is he right? Do we now prefer the ephemeral over the permanent social Internet?

That’s where we find ourselves now—Evan’s world. People are beginning to post less publicly online. Even Mark Zuckerberg has said as much. “In 2019, we expect the amount of Stories that are shared to outnumber the amount of Feed posts that are shared,” he said, referring to Facebook Stories. (FB and IG stories are FB’s blatant ripoffs of Snapchat.)

For my part, the answer is no. I rather enjoy Facebook Memories, for example – being reminded of past events I’ve shared over the years – and I find the Stories format quite annoying.

From a journalistic viewpoint, too, I think that the social posts of public figures (or those who later emerge as same) play an important role in providing an understanding of their values. If someone makes racist posts, for example, and ten years later stands for public office, I’d like my voting decision to be informed by that knowledge.

But I may well be in a minority.

If Isaac is right, he suggests that could pose revenue challenges for social networks.

Where are you at with the permanent social Internet? Do you view permanence as a positive or negative where social media posts are concerned? And do you actively choose to use platforms and formats whose posts are ephemeral in nature? Please take our poll, and share your thoughts in the comments.

Here’s an example: Snapchat, which has been impermanent from the very start, ended 2018 with a little over $1.1 billion in annual revenue from its different ad formats. Facebook, by contrast, raked in more than fifty times that amount, some $55 billion, most of that coming from news feed ads. That is an insane amount of money, but it is also based on a permanent internet, one that is quickly going away.

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