Hey, remember BeReal, the real-time photo-sharing app that had half the population in a virtual chokehold back in 2022? Well since then, things haven’t gone so great for the app, which some considered to, potentially, be the next big thing.

BeReal has struggled to maintain its growth momentum, while its limited use case has also restricted its monetization capacity. And as a result, BeReal’s founders are now getting out while they still can, with the app today announcing that it’s been sold to video game and app developer Voodoo for $500 million.

For clarity, it’s actually more like $US537 million, at a €500 million sale price, which seems like a very high price point for an app with questionable upside.

And in that context, what exactly Voodoo’s paying for is another question.

At peak, BeReal had around 70 million daily active users, but these days, it’s more like 30 million, though BeReal itself claims that it’s still reaching 50 million daily participants. So really, Voodoo’s paying for the capacity to contact 50 million or so people, and from there, it’s hoping that it can work out an actual business from the framework of the platform, that will seemingly operate in isolation from its other offerings.

As reported by The Financial Times, Voodoo’s initial plan is to launch ads in the app, while it also says that it’ll be seeking to grow its active user base to 100 million.

Which will be some feat. Again, 50 million users is pretty much the same level that BeReal has been at for about two years, so how exactly Voodoo plans to double that, with ads included, remains to be seen.

The initial lure of BeReal is in the name, with the app providing real, genuine insight into each users’ day, as opposed to our increasingly curated social feeds. That felt like a breath of fresh air, and gained the platform a heap of attention. But BeReal has always seemed like more of a feature than an app, and a feature that was, in fact, replicated by both Instagram and TikTok.

Which is core to its challenge in scaling. Because BeReal doesn’t have any unique, defining element, bigger platforms can just copy it, and dilute it into oblivion. And there’s not really space to grow. Besides becoming just another social platform, there’s nothing that gives BeReal any significant market advantage, that would point to its growth path.

But its new owners are going to try, though I’m pretty confident in predicting that we’re close to the end of BeReal as a consideration in the social media space.

Basically, BeReal users can anticipate many ads, sent direct to them, in the coming months, as Voodoo seeks to recoup its costs.