Strangely, I kinda see it being the first thing where "everyone must get into".

Before that, the web was a mishmash of communities, websites, shops and services. Even instant messengers were way more open and utilitarian, and more like Email: I would use Odigo, Adium or whatever, to use ICQ, AOL, etc. And you just talked with your internet friends.

But when MySpace launched, it was a strange situation where you needed an account, otherwise you weren't seen as "cool" by people you knew from non-online spaces. I was in my 20s and in bands, so not having one was just unacceptable.

After that, there would be those "migrations" where "normies" would follow. Using Email, ICQ or AOL wasn't seen as cool, so you should go to MSN. Myspace wasn't cool anymore, so you had to go to Facebook. And so on and so on. Even techies got into it: having a Hotmail instead of Gmail was seen as a bad thing... and so on.

Funnily enough, my experience is a combination of both yours and the GP’s. MSN Messenger vs AIM was what I perceived as the first big megacorp battle on the internet with ads everywhere and it was the first set of platforms people just had to be on. That’s when the internet went from IRC/BBS/small forum communication for nerds to my non-technical school friends using it.

The cool kids (nerds) later just used Pidgin or whatever, but I remember that era as being the first intense competition over the internet. Probably says more about my age than anything else.