When Instagram and Facebook went dark in early March, it was a wake-up call for brands and influencers that rely on these platforms to drive sales. Although Instagram and Facebook are both powerful advertising platforms, the outage highlighted the risks of overreliance. As brands waited for them to come back online, they were forced to contemplate the daunting question: What would they do if these platforms suddenly vanished?From the outset of launching her eponymous brand, aesthetician Angela Caglia has recognized the crucial role of fostering community engagement on her website as a hedge against platform dominance. In an effort to diversify her content marketing strategy, she turned to Stage TEN, a live-streaming video commerce platform that integrates with Shopify, as another avenue to market and sell her products. Stage TEN allows brands to host livestreams directly on their site, enabling customers to interact with the brand and make purchases in real time directly onscreen. Caglia regularly hosts a program she calls “Skin School” on Sunday afternoons to educate her audience on skincare topics and promote her products. On the morning of the Meta outage, Caglia capitalized on the opportunity by sending out a message to her text and email subscribers. While other brands were refreshing Instagram and Facebook, Caglia cleared $10,000 in revenue—all from her spontaneous livestream.Soon after the Meta outage, the House passed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, relinquishes its ownership stake in the app. These back-to-back events serve as a reminder of the dangers of platform dominance for brands.