MySpace Didn't Die, It Sold Its Soul (And ChatGPT Might Be Next)

MySpace had 100 million users and more web traffic than Google. Then they made one decision that started a five-year collapse. A decade later, ChatGPT might be making the same mistake. In this episode of Whatever Happened To, I break down how MySpace went from the most visited site on the internet to a $35 million fire sale, in five years. The short answer: they stopped doing what made them great and started chasing ad revenue instead. I'm Scott Monday. I run two businesses in California's Central Valley and I'm morbidly curious about what makes businesses succeed and fail, especially the ones we all grew up with. 0:00 — MySpace had more traffic than Google 0:23 — What this series is about 0:39 — My personal connection to MySpace 1:19 — How MySpace was built (2003 to 2004) 2:17 — 25 million users and Rupert Murdoch's $580M buyout 3:02 — News Corp sees "eyeball inventory" 3:26 — The $900M Google ad deal 3:46 — Why it was a trap 4:25 — Facebook rises while MySpace falls 5:52 — The core lesson: optimized for the contract, not the customer 6:11 — Is ChatGPT making the same mistake? 7:50 — What this means for your business 9:25 — The question every business owner needs to ask 10:05 — Subscribe and final thought The lesson isn't just about MySpace. It's about the small decisions you and I make every day that slowly erode the thing our customers love. MySpace wasn't run by idiots. They were run by smart people who made a series of bad decisions, each one looking reasonable in isolation. Don't make the same trade. Subscribe for a new episode every two weeks. No fluff, no motivation talk, just real lessons from real businesses you actually remember. I write about this stuff every week in The Scott Monday Newsletter: https://scottmonday.substack.com