This is an interesting explanation of things. So it's not just that Facebook was better in 20XX-20YY, it's the stage of life a person was in. I started college in the fall of 2004 (in Boston back when "TheFacebook" was limited to college students there and at a handful other prestigious schools across the country). It was indeed great fun in those days. By 2010, just a couple years out of college, I already thought that Facebook had turned to garbage, so it's interesting to hear that you had a good experience starting in 2010. Your theory makes sense.
Now that I'm a parent in my mid-30s, Facebook is just a utility for getting information from local officials (who've all but abandoned their legitimate public-facing websites) and buying / selling through Marketplace. It has nothing to do with fun.
I started using TheFacebook in 2005 (A Mark Zuckerberg Production. Too Close for Missiles, Switching to Guns).
It had expanded beyond the prestigious colleges, but each college still had to be "on boarded" individually. I was on the first day TheFacebook was available at my mountain-west university, although all my friends were still on MySpace at the time. As much as I can't stand Facebook (or Meta) these days (the products, the company, the impact on society), I do look back on 2005-206 Facebook with great fondness. It waned on me as we entered the 2010's... But back then, tt was novel, new, fun, quirky but polished (unlike MySpace). It was a great way to easily share photos and tag people - and I was at that stage in life where that sort of thing was also really fun. It was a magical time.
Now that I'm a parent in my mid-30s, Facebook is just a utility for getting information from local officials (who've all but abandoned their legitimate public-facing websites) and buying / selling through Marketplace. It has nothing to do with fun.