A field guide to digital platforms
Snapshots of the top platforms around the world, how they work, how they make money, and how they differ.
This field guide accompanies the Lurker’s Guide to the Internet series.
It highlights the top platforms in each category with the largest global user bases. I’ve also included smaller platforms that are relevant for experts.
Use this post to quickly understand how the main platforms work and differ. You can refer back to it throughout the series.
Scroll below or search for specific platforms:
Private community platforms: WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Messages
Open community platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Threads, LinkedIn
Discovery and search platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, Reddit, Substack
Other platforms you should know: Personal website, Mastodon
At the end of this post, I’ve listed caveats and considerations for this series.
Private community platforms
Private community platforms allow controlled user access. You chat with people you know or have invited. The content is often encrypted to keep it private, and it doesn't appear in public feeds or search results.
Users tend to trust and engage more in these spaces. As public platforms face challenges, more people are moving to private communities for safer-feeling interactions. Creators also use these platforms to monetize their communities through exclusive content.
Note: This list focuses on platforms where private communities are the main product. Some open platforms also offer private products, e.g. Facebook Groups, Instagram Messenger, and Substack chat.
WhatsApp
Meta | Menlo Park, USA | Public company (NASDAQ: META)
WhatsApp is a messaging app used for one-on-one and group chats via text, voice, and video. It’s the leading private messaging platform outside the United States, used by families, professional networks, and businesses.
Users: 3 billion monthly active users globally. Broadest geographic reach of any messaging app. Dominant in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Business model: Paid WhatsApp Business API, with Meta’s advertising ecosystem supporting the free consumer app.
Ownership: Owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Distribution logic: Direct and group messaging only. No algorithmic feed or public content.
Privacy: End-to-end encrypted by default.
Notable for experts: A common venue for professional networks, especially outside the US.
Telegram
Telegram FZ-LLC | Dubai, UAE | Private company
Telegram is a messaging app for one-on-one chats, supergroups of up to 200,000 members, and large channels for one-way communication. It blends private messaging and broadcasting.
Users: 1 billion monthly active users globally. Strong presence in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Skews toward users seeking alternatives to mainstream platforms.
Business model: Premium subscriptions and ads in public channels.
Ownership: Founded by Pavel Durov, who also founded VKontakte (Russia’s largest social network).
Distribution logic: Hybrid. Private chats and groups function like WhatsApp. Public channels function more like a broadcast feed — anyone can subscribe and content is publicly searchable.
Privacy: End-to-end encryption is available but not on by default for group chats.
Notable for experts: Significant for news, underground culture, and political organizing. It faces scrutiny for misinformation and extremist content.
Discord
Discord Inc. | San Francisco, USA | Private company
Discord is a platform built around servers — communities organized into topic-based channels for text, voice, and video. Initially for gamers, it’s now popular among professional communities, researchers, and creators.
Users: 200–260 million monthly active users globally. Skews younger but expanding in professional use.
Business model: Premium subscriptions (Nitro) and server boosts.
Ownership: Independent private company. Turned down a $12 billion acquisition offer from Microsoft in 2021.
Distribution logic: Community-based. Content stays within servers. There is no cross-platform algorithmic feed. Discovery happens through server directories or direct invitation.
Privacy: Not end-to-end encrypted. Discord moderates content at the platform level. Server owners moderate at the community level.
Notable for experts: Easy to create moderated communities around specific topics.
Slack
Slack Technologies | San Francisco, USA | Subsidiary of Salesforce (NYSE: CRM)
Slack is a workplace messaging platform organized around channels. Often used for internal team communication and increasingly for distributed communities, like professional associations and peer groups.
Users: ~52 million registered users globally. Predominantly professional — businesses, academic institutions, newsrooms, and nonprofits — with a growing segment of community-based users outside traditional workplace contexts.
Business model: Freemium subscriptions. Free tier limits message history; paid tiers unlock full functionality.
Ownership: Acquired by Salesforce in 2021.
Distribution logic: Channel-based within organizations or invite-only workspaces. No public feed or algorithmic distribution.
Privacy: Not end-to-end encrypted. Slack moderates content at the platform level. On paid plans, workspace administrators can export and read all message history, including direct messages.
Notable for experts: Many academic and research organizations use Slack for internal operations and external professional communities.
Messages
Apple Inc. | Cupertino, USA | Public company (NASDAQ: AAPL)
Messages is Apple’s built-in messaging app, available exclusively on Apple devices, used for one-on-one and group conversations via text, voice, and video.
Users: Apple does not publish Messages user numbers, but the app is widely used because it's built into every iPhone. Apple has approximately 1.2–1.4 billion active devices globally. Messages is particularly prevalent in North America.
Business model: No direct monetization. It retains users within the Apple ecosystem.
Ownership: Owned by Apple.
Distribution logic: Direct and group messaging only. Fully private, no public feed or algorithmic distribution.
Privacy: End-to-end encrypted by default.
Notable for experts: Included here not because of scale, but for its prevalence in North America, where it serves as a default communication tool for many people.
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Open community platforms
Open community platforms focus on social connections. Users follow people, build networks, and join public conversations. Content is mostly public, accessible to anyone, and can appear in search results.
These platforms are often linked to social media. Currently, they face significant policy and legal scrutiny about their design. Features like content recommendations and infinite scroll may change.
Facebook
Meta | Menlo Park, USA | Public company (NASDAQ: META)
Facebook is a social networking platform where people connect with friends, family, and public figures. Users share updates, photos, and videos, and join interest-based groups. It's also popular for local organizing and small business pages.
Users: 3.07 billion monthly active users globally. Broadest demographic reach of any platform. The 30–49 age group is the most active. Older users are a growing share of its base.
Business model: Advertising.
Ownership: Owned by Meta, which also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.
Distribution logic: Reach depends on both audience relationships and engagement signals, with algorithmic recommendations playing an increasingly important role. That means that having a Facebook page is not enough to reach people — even your own followers. Consistent posting and audience interaction are required to maintain visibility.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. Private groups are mostly moderated by admins. Messenger has end-to-end encryption.
Notable for experts: Facebook Groups host diverse online communities, from neighborhood networks to professional associations. Groups are often private, and vary in quality and norms based on admin control.
Instagram
Meta | Menlo Park, USA | Public company (NASDAQ: META)
Instagram focuses on photos and short videos. It started with lifestyle content but now supports creators, brands, and educational material.
Users: 3 billion monthly active users globally. Particularly strong among 18–34 year olds.
Business model: Advertising.
Ownership: Owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads.
Distribution logic: Hybrid. Feed posts and Stories are primarily shown to followers but ranked algorithmically. Reels work differently: they're distributed algorithmically to non-followers based on interest and engagement signals, similar to TikTok. This makes Reels a stronger discovery tool than Instagram's original follower-first model.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. Meta moderates content under its community standards.
Notable for experts: Because the feed focuses on visual formats and plays videos with the sound off by default, it prioritizes visual clarity. Also, Instagram has the highest concentration of wellness and lifestyle influencers of any platform — an important consideration for health experts and communicators.
Snapchat
Snap Inc. | Santa Monica, USA | Public company (NYSE: SNAP)
Snapchat is a messaging platform with disappearing photos and videos. It introduced the Stories format used by many platforms today.
Users: 900 million monthly active users globally. Skews younger — mostly popular among 13–24 year olds. Less relevant as a professional platform but significant as a window into how younger audiences consume information.
Business model: Advertising and Snapchat+ premium subscription.
Ownership: Independent public company.
Distribution logic: Hybrid. Direct snaps are person-to-person. Stories are visible to followers. Spotlight (its TikTok-equivalent) is algorithmically distributed to non-followers.
Privacy: By default, messages disappear after viewing but they’re not end-to-end encrypted. Snap moderates content under its community guidelines.
Notable for experts: This may not be a platform that many experts use, but it’s important to include due to its size and prevalence among young people. It’s also a way to understand how younger generations expect content to feel: casual, immediate, and unpolished.
X (formerly Twitter)
X Corp. | San Francisco, USA | Private company
X is a real-time public conversation platform built around short text-based posts, replies, and threads. As Twitter, it was a primary venue for breaking news, academic discourse, and public intellectual debate. Since Elon Musk’s acquisition in 2022, its character and reputation have shifted significantly.
Users: Approximately 600 million monthly active users globally. Historically attracted journalists, academics, and politicians.
Business model: Advertising and X Premium subscriptions.
Ownership: Acquired by Elon Musk in 2022 and taken private.
Distribution logic: Hybrid of follower-based and algorithmic feeds. X Premium subscribers receive preferential algorithmic distribution. Reach is now increasingly tied to paid features.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. Content moderation has decreased significantly since Musk’s acquisition.
Notable for experts: Historically the most important platform for academic and policy discourse. Since Musk’s acquisition, many experts and journalists have shifted to Bluesky, Threads, and LinkedIn. But X remains significant.
Threads
Meta | Menlo Park, USA | Public company (NASDAQ: META)
Threads is Meta’s text-based social platform, launched in 2023 as a direct competitor to X. It is built on Instagram’s social graph, so you automatically connect with those that you already follow on Instagram.
Users: 400 million monthly active users globally and growing rapidly. User base skews toward existing Instagram users and those who left X after 2022.
Business model: Advertising.
Ownership: Owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Distribution logic: Algorithmic feed with a following feed option. Benefits from Meta’s recommendation infrastructure and cross-promotion across Instagram and Facebook.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. Meta moderates content under its community standards.
Notable for experts: The fastest-growing platform in this category. Still establishing its identity and community norms. Lower friction to join for anyone already on Instagram.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn Corporation | Sunnyvale, USA | Subsidiary of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)
LinkedIn is a professional networking platform used for connecting with colleagues, recruiting and job searching, sales prospecting, and industry networking. A growing number of professionals also use it to build public presence through text posts, long-form articles, and LinkedIn Newsletters.
Users: 1.2 billion members globally, with estimated 350 million monthly active users. Predominantly used for professional networking.
Business model: Premium subscriptions, recruiting tools, and advertising.
Ownership: Acquired by Microsoft in 2016.
Distribution logic: Algorithmic feed weighted toward engagement. Content from outside your network can reach you if it performs well. Organic reach remains relatively strong compared to Facebook and Instagram.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. LinkedIn moderates content under its community standards.
AI indexing: LinkedIn content is widely indexed by search engines and increasingly surfaced in AI-powered search and answer engines. Professional profiles and public posts are becoming more visible in AI-generated results.
Notable for experts: The largest industries represented on LinkedIn are professional services, technology, finance, and manufacturing. Institutional fields like medicine, academia, and government are underrepresented relative to their professional weight in society.
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Discovery and search platforms
These platforms are built around topics and interests rather than your existing social network. You don't need to know anyone to find relevant content. The platform shows you content based on your searches, interactions, and what others with similar interests value.
For creators, reaching an audience relies less on follower count than on user signals about the relevance and quality of your content. So they often design their content to be easily indexed for the questions and topics people are searching for. These platforms can help creators reach people who are actively looking for the information they offer — often strangers who would rarely connect through a community-based network.
YouTube
Google LLC | San Bruno, USA | Subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL)
YouTube is a video platform for watching, sharing, and commenting on everything from short clips to documentaries. It’s the largest video platform and the second largest digital platform by monthly users. It acts as both a search engine and a social network.
Users: 2.5 billion monthly active users globally. Broadest demographic reach of any video platform — it’s used across all age groups, geographies, and interests.
Business model: Advertising, with a premium subscription tier (YouTube Premium) that removes ads and enables background playback.
Ownership: Owned by Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Distribution logic: Hybrid of search and algorithmic recommendations. Viewers can subscribe to channels, but YouTube prioritizes watch history and engagement signals over follower relationships. Because of YouTube’s search features, older videos can still generate views long after they're published, giving content a shelf life that most social platforms don't offer.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. YouTube moderates content under its Community Guidelines.
Notable for experts: The combination of searchability and long content shelf life makes YouTube uniquely suited for evergreen expert content like explainers and lectures.
TikTok
ByteDance (global) | Beijing, China | Private company
TikTok Inc. (US) | Los Angeles, USA | Private company
TikTok is a short-form video platform that serves content based on users’ searches, interests, and engagement. It has become a significant venue for education and expert commentary, alongside entertainment.
Users: About 1.6–2 billion monthly active users globally. Skews younger but older demographics are growing. Strong presence in Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe.
Business model: Advertising, in-app purchases, and commerce (TikTok Shop).
Ownership: Owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. In the US, it operates as a separate entity under TikTok Inc., following regulatory pressure over data privacy and national security concerns.
Distribution logic: Interest- and search-based algorithm, not follower-based. Creators without followers can reach millions if their content is considered helpful and engaging.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. TikTok moderates content under its community guidelines. Has faced scrutiny in the US over data privacy and access by its Chinese parent company.
Notable for experts: TikTok offers excellent organic reach to audiences beyond your existing network. Authenticity is rewarded over polished production, a shift from earlier platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Regulatory uncertainty in the US is a concern for experts in sensitive fields.
Spotify
Spotify Technology S.A. | Stockholm, Sweden | Public company (NYSE: SPOT)
Spotify is primarily an audio streaming platform known for music but is now a leading distribution platform for podcasts. It serves as both a hosting and discovery platform for audio content.
Users: Approximately 750 million monthly active users globally. Broad demographic reach across age groups and geographies. Podcast listeners tend to be educated, higher-income audiences.
Business model: Freemium subscriptions. Free tier is ad-supported; Premium removes ads and enables offline listening.
Ownership: Independent public company headquartered in Stockholm.
Distribution logic: Hybrid of search and algorithmic recommendation. Podcasts are surfaced through search, editorial playlists, and Spotify’s recommendation engine. Discovery is harder than on video platforms — podcast growth tends to rely heavily on cross-promotion from other platforms.
Privacy: Standard data collection for personalization. Content moderation applies to podcasts hosted on Spotify under its platform rules.
Notable for experts: Podcasting suits experts well with its long and conversational format. The barrier to entry is lower than video. However, discoverability remains a challenge for new creators.
Reddit
Reddit Inc. | San Francisco, USA | Public company (NYSE: RDDT)
Reddit is a network of topic-based communities called subreddits where people share links, ask questions, and have discussions. Content is ranked by community upvotes rather than follower count or algorithmic recommendation, making it one of the most distinctly community-governed platforms at scale.
Users: Approximately 765 million monthly active users globally. Skews younger and male, though women users have been steadily growing, driven in part by active communities around women's health, relationships, and lifestyle topics.
Business model: Advertising and Reddit Premium subscriptions.
Ownership: Independent public company; went public in 2024.
Distribution logic: Community and vote-based. Content rises or falls based on upvotes within each subreddit. There is no follower feed — discovery happens within communities you join or through Reddit’s front page aggregation. Moderators are volunteer community members, not Reddit staff or vendors.
Privacy: No end-to-end encryption for public content. Reddit moderates at the platform level. Individual subreddits are moderated by volunteer community members with significant autonomy.
AI indexing: Reddit has become an important source of training and retrieval data for AI systems, supported by formal licensing agreements with companies including Google and OpenAI.
Notable for experts: Reddit has become a significant venue for peer knowledge-sharing in communities that feel underserved by mainstream institutions and legacy media — women's health, chronic illness, and mental health are among the most active.
Substack
Substack Inc. | San Francisco, USA | Private company
Substack is a platform for newsletters, podcasts, and long-form writing. Writers publish directly to subscriber inboxes, and often give readers the option to pay for premium content.
Users: 20 million monthly active subscribers globally. While small compared to other platforms, subscribers are highly engaged and have opted in to receive content.
Business model: Free to publish, and writers can monetize directly through reader subscriptions. Substack takes a 10% commission on paid subscriptions.
Ownership: Independent private company, backed by venture capital.
Distribution logic: Primarily direct — content goes to subscriber inboxes. Substack has an algorithm-based feed called Notes, but email remains the main method. Writers own their subscriber lists and can export them.
Privacy: Standard data collection. Content moderation is notably light compared to other platforms. Substack has faced criticism for hosting controversial content with limited intervention.
AI indexing: Public Substack posts are increasingly discoverable through AI-powered search systems. The text-heavy format is well-suited for indexing.
Notable for experts: You own your audience here; your subscriber list is yours. The direct-to-inbox model ensures your content reaches subscribers without competing in an algorithmic feed. It has a small but engaged readership, gaining credibility for serious writing by experts. However, internal discovery is limited; most writers promote their newsletters on other platforms.
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Other platforms you should know
The platforms below don't fit neatly into the categories above, but are important for understanding the full range of options in the digital information ecosystem.
Personal website (direct publishing)
Various hosts
A personal website is your online space. You control its content and design. It’s hosted on your domain and built on your chosen platform. You aren't bound by third-party rules or algorithms.
Users: Not applicable. A personal website is your piece of real estate online.
Business model: Costs vary. Domain registration and hosting typically run $50–200 per year. Costs may increase if you hire designers or other technical support.
Ownership: You own everything: your content, domain, data, and audience relationships.
Distribution logic: None. A personal website lacks an algorithm, feed, or audience. Traffic comes from search engines, links, or direct visits. This option offers high control but low built-in reach.
Privacy: Fully under your control. You decide site accessibility and data collection from visitors.
Notable for experts: A personal website offers complete control over content, design, distribution, and data. The tradeoff is that you must build your audience. Many experts use it as a home base to showcase their work across platforms, rather than as a primary content channel.
Mastodon (open source network)
Mastodon gGmbH | Berlin, Germany | Nonprofit
Mastodon is a decentralized, open-source social network made of independent servers, or instances, that communicate with each other. Imagine viewing Instagram content through your TikTok account — that’s how instances interact. It’s part of the fediverse, a network of interconnected platforms.
Users: Under 1 million active users globally — a small fraction compared to other platforms.
Business model: No central business model or advertising. Mastodon gGmbH is funded mainly by user donations. Individual instances support themselves through donations or volunteers.
Ownership: No central owner. Mastodon gGmbH is a nonprofit that maintains open-source software and runs one of the largest instances, mastodon.social. It doesn’t control the thousands of other independent instances worldwide. No one governs the fediverse as a whole.
Distribution logic: Follower-based within and across instances. No central algorithm — content appears chronologically. No advertising, and no engagement-optimized recommendation engine.
Privacy: Varies by instance. Content moderation is managed by individual instance administrators, not a central company.
Notable for experts: I included Mastodon because of what it represents — a working example of a platform governed entirely by its community rather than a corporation. It embodies what a lot of people say they wish for in platforms: no ads, no algorithm, no central authority. However, its small size and technical barrier to entry make it an unlikely starting point for most.
Caveats and considerations
Here are some important points to keep in mind when using the Lurker’s Guide to the Internet series:
The user figures come from public sources, including company announcements, earnings calls, and third-party aggregators like Backlinko, Statista, and DemandSage. These numbers change often and may use different definitions. Treat them as directional, not exact.
The map focuses on the largest global platforms by active user base. Region-specific platforms like WeChat, Douyin, or LINE are not included, despite their large user bases.
I am also excluding sector-specific platforms, such as Academia.edu for academics or Doximity for physicians. Still, I hope this series helps you think about the qualities you want in the platforms you use.
Some platforms with smaller user bases are included, like LinkedIn, Messages, personal websites, and Mastodon (an open-source network), as they are relevant for experts.
This series covers only organic (unpaid) distribution. Paid advertising and content boosting are not included.
Specific reasons for choosing one platform over another are not considered. This includes accessibility features or user demographics like age, language, political views, or location.
The series is based on publicly available information and my direct experience. For transparency, I worked at Meta from 2018-2024. ◾