What is the future of social media?

I think more 'tight knight', private social media spaces are the future here.

You can see this in how a lot of young people prefer stuff like Discord over Twitter and Facebook, and how (in some spaces), Fediverse communities and even traditional forum like ones are taking off again.

As for why this is the case... well, I think a few reasons are key here:

1. People realised that having everyone in the same is a bad idea. People don't all get along with each other, and putting those with opposing values together like on Twitter leads to fights and flame wars. So they want communities of people they share something in common with.

2. Publicly posted content is easier to take out of context, both by their political opponents and the media.

In the future, I think 90% of the internet will just be bots talking to each other

Instagram became popular because of filters. So some revolution of that sort that helps create great videos (with animations or edited stuffs) without much fuzz will capture attention. But I am certain GPT/AI will play a big role in next generation social media application. It already does to a certain extent today under the hoods may be.

Every new generation will move away from their father generation applications. May be younger folks on HN will be able to answer that query better.

I think most people will continue to hang out on a major platform (whatever that may be), but I think many will make boutique social networks that have 10-1000 people.

Online video games because they have been working on anti-bot/anti-cheat for ages.

ActivityPub is working well. It doesn't have Twitter integration, but down-and-out competitors like Tumblr and Flipboard are starting to integrate with the larger Fediverse. If this goes well, it could end the massive demand for a platform like Twitter with hundreds of other niche, interconnected sites.