The problem is that people are addicted to tension, by raising tension it fills a need, but the release of that tension is also addictive. Social media is just uppers and downers churned over and over. In one moment you can see some guy assassinated and then a box full of puppies rolling around and being cute. But that tension is only present at the extremes.

The point where social media failed was when the government agreed, at the behest of the companies, that platforms aren't liable for what is published there. So it has allowed a flood of inflammatory accusations that make it hard to find the individual responsible, where it would be easier to just take the platform to court like you would a paper, or a TV channel.

"The point where social media failed" was rather when most agreed to pretend that the services are for free and our attention may be hijacked by advertisement companies who have the goal of maximizing your engagement, meaning making you addicted.

> The problem is that people are addicted to tension

And some.

We've known that humans prefer to hear about trouble, strife, and tension for a very long time - that's why the evening news was always a downer, and newspapers before that.

I would argue that financialization of the social media is what made it fail. Once there’s direct dollar cost to your posts, ideas and etc., the incentives change from “fun” to “commercial”. That started heavily around 2017ish, where every social media switched to algorithm-first, and heavily started tracking engagement/attention per post.