The invite audio-only social media app was founded in March 2020 by Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth, going viral seemingly overnight during the pandemic. Many celebrities and other renowned people joined the app, such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tiffany Haddish, Meek Mill, Tory Lanez, and many more. The app's exclusivity added to its hype when it became known that the app was only compatible with IOS systems before becoming compatible with Android systems in May 2021.
People went berserk trying to get into this exclusive app to the extent that invite codes were sold online for hundreds of dollars on online marketplaces like eBay and Etsy. The app continued to flourish throughout 2020 as more people were connecting online due to the global pandemic. The isolation brought on by the pandemic encouraged people to seek connections elsewhere, or rather, online, and Clubhouse was the perfect solution.
The hype surrounding this app increased not only its popularity but also its market value. Within the first two months of its launch, the app value soared to a billion dollars and continues to rise; its current value is marked at approximately $4 billion. So naturally, this increase in value drew the attention of investors and stock traders wanting to get a hold of the Clubhouse app stock, but unfortunately, it is yet to be a public stock.
But what is the next step for this billion-dollar app? The vaccine is out, and people are rapidly leaving the new normal stage and fleeting back to our pre-pandemic normal. Restaurants are opening up, states are lifting curfews, and in a general sense, people get to interact in person once again. This shift to pre-pandemic normalcy means that apps, such as Clubhouse, heavily influenced by the pandemic would slowly die down since we don't need them anymore because we would be free from the pandemic. Sadly, we can already see it happening, as the app has gone down in rank from being numbered on the list of the most downloaded apps in the IOS app store to no longer belonging to the app store's top twenty recommended apps.
The proposed legacy of Clubhouse leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions. Will its recent compatibility with Android keep the hype up or cause a new rise in popularity? Will people still be interested in this app post-pandemic? Will we soon witness the end of Clubhouse? Only time will tell.
Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/stocksnap-894430/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2557577">StockSnap</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2557577">Pixabay</a>
