Analytics firm App Annie revealed data about the most-downloaded apps and games of the past ten years. Most of it is about what you’d expect: microtransaction games dominated, as did social media and telecommunications. But there is one small detail that’s a bit galling: Facebook, quite literally, owned this decade.
On App Annie’s list of the top apps by all-time downloads, the apps holding the top four slots are, in order, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. It’s not really a surprise to see that social media has dominated the app market for the entire decade — it wouldn’t be a stretch to say it’s dominated our lives for that same amount of time. But it might be a revelation for some that Facebook and its subsidiaries snagged every top spot available.
This is a bit amusing if you know about Facebook’s current legal mess. In case you weren’t aware, Facebook is currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over antitrust allegations. Its critics argue that Facebook doesn’t have any major competitors in the social media app space essentially because it bought the competition. Should Facebook be found to be in violation of antitrust laws, the FTC could forcibly break the company up from the third- and fourth-place winners, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Of the remaining six apps on the list, it’s about what you’d expect. Snapchat snaps at Facebook’s heels from fifth place, while TikTok has managed to snag the seventh spot despite only having been around a short time. I’m honestly surprised Twitter and YouTube didn’t rank higher than Skype, which got sixth place. Maybe more people use it than I realized.
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None of Facebook’s apps made it onto the list of top apps by spend, which was mostly dominated by video and music apps like Netflix. The only entry on either of the lists that doesn’t fit the mold of either video, music, or social media appears to be Tinder, which came in second in consumer spending.
In case you’re wondering, the games of the decade are about what you’d expect. It’s mostly dominated by the likes of Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans, though the most-downloaded game of the decade was Subway Surfers. It beat out the likes of Temple Run 2 and Fruit Ninja, which is funny to me because I haven’t seen or heard of anyone playing it for years. But hey, if you’re still playing it, more power to you.
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