For three months in 2021, Clubhouse felt like the future of social media. Elon showed up. Oprah showed up. Everyone was in a room.
The pandemic created perfect conditions for live audio — people were lonely, stuck at home, and craving real-time human connection.
Twitter Spaces, Spotify Greenroom, Facebook Live Audio — everyone copied us within months. Imitation is flattering until it commoditizes your product.
We were valued at $4 billion. Then people went outside. The lesson: do not confuse pandemic behavior for permanent behavior.
Live audio requires you to show up at a specific time. That is the opposite of what TikTok taught people — consume content whenever, wherever.
We are rebuilding. Smaller team, clearer focus. The audio format has a future, even if the hype cycle is over.