Parler Is Back on Google Play with a New Business Model

Remember Parler, the social media platform that tried to compete with Twitter by allowing everyone to say anything?

In case you don't, a few years ago, after a few politicians were banned from Twitter for saying things that didn't align with Twitter's rules, an unknown app by the name of Parler became popular for not having (m)any rules and for allowing free speech.

Within a few short months, Parler's popularity and downloads rose, to the point its lack of rules became a liability for major App Stores and even for its cloud provider, Amazon, which led to the app losing its servers and also its place on the App Store and Google Play.

It spent a while re-establishing itself and was eventually allowed back into the App Store. By that time, it lost most of its momentum and CEO. Well, a few weeks ago Google finally allowed Parler back into its store.

So, why is this interesting?

Parler was the first in what's now becoming a crowded market of Twitter clones that emphasize free speech as their core philosophy. At its peak, Parler saw more than a million downloads in one day.

After looking at downloads of Truth Social and Rumble a couple of weeks ago, I just had to take a look at what downloads look like now that Parler is officially back.

According to our estimates, Parler's return added about 18,000 new users to the platform. That may sound like a lot, but... it really isn't.

Trump's platform gets that many downloads in a few days and that's only from the App Store because Google hasn't allowed it into its store yet. GETTR is smaller but still bigger than Parler, and Rumble is growing faster than all of them combined.

Also, the bump in downloads sloped down hard within a few days, bringing Parler's daily downloads back into the hundreds, according to our estimates.

Parler seems to understand they may no longer be relevant. I say this because they recently announced the acquisition of a cloud hosting provider and explained they want to become the infrastructure provider to platforms like it, which is an interesting move in a space that so far has not gotten the traction some expected it to.